


The Becoming of Sam Winchester, Trickster

by HerMajestyEvie



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, F/M, M/M, Pre-Series, Torture, Trickster Gabriel (Supernatural), Trickster Sam Winchester, Weechesters
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-16
Updated: 2020-01-18
Packaged: 2020-05-13 04:30:21
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con, Underage
Chapters: 17
Words: 28,272
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19243867
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HerMajestyEvie/pseuds/HerMajestyEvie
Summary: John leaves Sam alone one night, taking Dean on a werewolf hunt. When the werewolf goes after Sam, the youngest Winchester calls out for help from everyone, including the angel Gabriel whom he had read about at Pastor Jim's.When Gabriel answered the prayer and found the boy bloodied, broken, and all alone, what was he meant to do other than take the boy somewhere safe?It wasn't his fault that he forgot to check who he had just claimed!





	1. Saving Sam Winchester

**Author's Note:**

> To all those who know me: Welcome back! Now what are you doing here?!? You know how sadistic I am!  
> To those who are new: Hi. I love writing about unicorns and rainbows in fluffy little happy pieces to be read to your children. Please continue scrolling and enjoy this latest (not at all disturbing) story...

John Winchester was not a good father, and quite frankly, he wasn’t a good man either. His obsession with hunting had overtaken any paternal instincts he ever possessed, the once kind man becoming but a shell of who he had been. 

“I’ll be back soon Sammy,” Dean said, following his father out the door of their latest motel room to go on a hunt for a werewolf, or maybe it was a demon, or a wendigo. Sam didn’t know anymore. 

“You’d better be,” Sam replied, only ten years old and yet already more knowledgeable about the world than any other child, and most adults too. 

With a smile, Dean shut the door, but not before sparing a glance to ensure the salt lines were intact and the windows locked. Only fourteen and he already was a soldier, blindly following his father to the end of the world just to try and please him. “Bye Sammy,” he said, the door already closed behind him. 

Sam climbed into bed, the covers pulled up over his head and the lamp on by his bed, his father’s disapproval of his fear overridden by the need to feel safe. Indeed he never let go of the silver knife under his pillow. 

Maybe an hour or three later the door creaked open, Sam immediately sitting up, “Dean,” being the first word out of his mouth. 

Except it wasn’t Dean or John in the door, but a rugged man with a scraggly beard and angry eyebrows, bloodstained and ripped fabric hanging off his chest. “Well aren’t you a pretty thing,” the man said, taking a step into the room. 

Sam, who had been in training for a year and a half, immediately was on his feet and holding the knife out ahead of him, but nothing could stop him from backing into a corner, or from shaking as he watched the man come ever closer. “Stay back!” He cried, and yet he didn’t sound anywhere near as confident as his father or Dean. 

“Your daddy thought that it would be a good idea to murder my family,” the man growled, taking another step. “It seems only fitting that I kill his. Are you a screamer boy? I hope you are.” He grabbed Sam by the throat, his knife falling uselessly to the floor, Sam being unable to hold his own against the man. 

Man. Monster. 

“Scream for me,” the man whispered, his tongue sliding over Sam’s cheek. 

Sam screamed. He screamed until his voice was hoarse and his throat burned. He screamed when the man used his teeth to rip into his throat, Sam’s own knife being buried into his tiny thighs over and over again. He screamed when he was thrown onto the bed and his clothes torn away, when the knife was removed from his thigh only to be plunged through his overlapped palms and into the bed below. 

And yet he stopped screaming when the man’s fingers ripped through his hole, closely followed by his cock as it tore him in half from the inside. Sam didn’t cry because he had nothing left to give, and he had realised one thing; no one was coming for him. 

No one was coming. No one would save him.

“Please stop,” he cried, his voice barely a whisper. “Please.”   
“Blame your daddy for this boy. He’s the one who left you here for me, and he’s the reason I’m here.”   
“Dad please, dad save me! Dean! Dean please!” Sam whimpered, too tired to fight back anymore. 

“No one is coming, and no one will save you. Not this time, just as I couldn’t save my boy.” 

“Please, please God. Please! Save me!” In a fit of desperation, Sam’s brain thought of everyone he’d ever idolised, everyone he’d ever thought of as a protector, as someone who would help him no matter what. 

_ Dad. Dean. Batman. God. Santa. Gabriel. Mum. Bobby. Pastor Jim.  _ Anyone, everyone, but he couldn’t voice his prayers and pleas. He couldn’t make a noise anymore. 

He couldn’t do anything with a knife in his stomach.

 

Xxx

 

Loki hadn’t been Gabriel in so long that he barely remembered what it was like to be an angel, let alone an archangel. In fact, if it wasn’t for his slumbering grace he would have forgotten he’d ever been anything other than Loki. 

Except, with Gabriel being the archangel of justice and all that jazz, finding assholes in need of their just desserts was easy when he listened out for the prayers of their victims. He made sure that any true prayer for help from a tortured soul was heard loudly and clearly, but they had to be directed at him alone. Most angels couldn’t do that, either completely blocking prayers out or letting them all in, some of them turning in to specific people. Most angels couldn’t filter prayers according to contents, except he wasn’t just any angel. He was an archangel, despite what anyone who saw him would say. 

_ Dad. Dean. Batman. God. Santa. Gabriel. Mum. Bobby. Pastor Jim.  _ The prayer came through, one coming right from the screaming soul of a child. He may not be Gabriel, but wasn’t going to leave whatever had caused such pain to continue to live. 

Loki followed the prayer, finding himself in a motel room too filthy to warrant anything but total destruction, a werewolf climbing off the broken body of a dying child with the brightest soul he’d ever seen. And he’d seen a lot of souls. 

The boy was bloodied and bruised, his neck torn and face beaten, legs being held together by sinew from the rare piece of skin that hadn’t been shredded by the knife in the boys stomach. And if the lack of clothes was anything to go by, as well as the man’s barely concealed bloodied dick, the boy had had more done to him than just what Loki could see. 

The pure fury he felt was not one that a Pagan could experience, but that of the true archangel of justice, one that made Gabriel snarl as his wings unfurled for the first time in centuries, their shadows cast over the walls as he summoned his blade and ensured it met its mark in the werewolf’s heart. He laughed as the monster burned as he died, Gabriel’s grace wanting nothing more than to destroy this beast for what he had done. 

Yes, it was too merciful for the monster, and yet Gabriel knew that he didn’t have the luxury of time, what with the boy’s last breath about to escape his lips. 

Carefully, Gabriel stowed his sword and grace and rushed over to the boy, his grace reaching out and healing everything he could, soothing the pain as best as possible and ensuring that no scar remained on the boy’s skin, although nothing could be done about his mind; he was too fragile at that moment for Gabriel to risk meddling in his head. 

The boy regained some consciousness for a moment, enough to see the man above him with the glowing eyes and golden hair that made him look like an angel. Sam Winchester only felt safe with this man, and that was the last thing he remembered before unconsciousness claimed him. Gabriel ensured that he wouldn’t dream, not wanting him to risk nightmares.

With the boy asleep and monster dead, Gab- no,  _ Loki  _ had no further reason to remain in the room, and yet…

And yet something wasn’t right. 

The boy was all alone in a room full of weapons, his clothes dirty before all the (now completely cleared thanks to a snap of Loki’s fingers) blood had tarnished them, the motel one that was sleazy and decrepit enough that no one would come if they heard the animalistic screams of a boy being raped.

In fact, everything was so wrong that Loki couldn’t let the boy with a soul that bright remain surrounded by it all. 

“I’m going to regret this,” Loki muttered before snapping his fingers and landing the boy in a bed fit for an emperor, one in his London apartment that overlooked the Thames. The boy heaved a sigh of contentment as if he could sense the change, and Loki made a vow then and there that if the boy so wished then he would stay. 

It was only once he looked back at the sleeping boy that he thought to identify him by his soul. A soul that very clearly (now that he was looking) had the stain of demon blood on it. One that was bright enough to rival the grace of the most beautiful angel, whom it was meant to be a vessel for. 

Loki,  _ Gabriel,  _ had just saved Samuel Wichester.

“Shit!”


	2. Grieving for that that was never lost

Gabriel paced back and forward at the foot of Sam’s bed, panic building with every turn. He’d just claimed a Winchester. A  _ Winchester _ ! And not just any; Lucifer’s vessel. The boy who was destined to become just like his fallen brother. If he kept the boy, claimed him, then he would derail the whole divine plans for the apocalypse. He would ruin everything. 

He would ruin the end of the world. 

That wasn’t… that wasn’t a bad thing… That was actually a pretty good thing…

If he laid a proper claim to Sam Winchester then he’d be under his protection. Hell, if he combined the powers of Loki and Gabriel he could do more than just claim the boy; he could make it impossible for him to be a vessel. The apocalypse wouldn’t work!

Gabriel smirked before halting his pacing, eyes on the young boy in his bed. He moved around so that he could place his hand on Sam’s head, a quick burst of magic coursing through the boy just to ensure that all the damage done to him was healed, even though he’d done so earlier already, going as far as blocking out any dreams to try and heal his mind. 

With a snap Gabriel woke Sam up, the boy startling awake, running into the corner of the room and curling up. “Don’t hurt me,” he whispered as Gabriel came over, hands up as if he were calming a wild animal. 

“I’m not going to hurt you,” Gabriel replied, needing to calm Sam.

“Please don’t hurt me!” Sam continued to cry, pushing himself further back into the corner despite being unable to. 

Gabriel took a quick look into the boy’s mind to find what was wrong, coming to the conclusion that Sam thought that he was the one to have hurt him, to have  _ raped  _ him. And Sam was terrified. 

Well that just wouldn’t do. 

A sap of his fingers and Gabriel altered Sam’s memories, his misconception that  _ he  _ was the monster to one John Winchester. It was cruel, Gabriel knew, but he needed Sam to get away from his family, and he needed him to trust him. Another snap, and Gabriel altered the memory again; Sam now only knew that John Winchester had barged in and attacked him, beating him within an inch of his life. Dean had watched, not caring about his brother’s state, and then Gabriel had run in and saved him, pulling him away and disappearing with him to somewhere that no one could hurt him.

The boy didn’t need to remember being raped, didn’t need to know that his father and brother weren’t there, didn’t need to know that Gabriel had kidnapped him. 

Instead of cowering in fear Sam began to cry, snot and tears spilling down his face, the young boy no longer pushing back into the corner, but almost reaching out for Gabriel to save him. In fact, if it hadn’t been that Gabriel were a stranger, the boy would be in Gabriel’s arms already. 

“Hi Sammy,” Gabriel said, crouching down to the boy’s level. “I’m Loki, you can call me Lo.” Nicknames. Children like nicknames. 

“H-hi Lo,” Sam stammered out, wiping at his eyes again, hiccuping as he tried to take deep breaths. 

“I take it this is pretty scary for you, Sammy?” Gabriel asked, eyes softening as he tried to placate the boy. “I’m here to help you though, and I’ll make sure that no one else ever hurts you.”

“Promise?” So much hope was in Sam’s eyes. 

“I promise,” Gabriel replied, giving him a gentle smile. “I will protect you forever Sammy.”

Sam gave him a smile so large that it almost melted Gabriel’s heart, ever improved by how the boy threw himself into his arms, tears dampening Gabriel’s shoulder. 

 

Xxx

 

John and Dean found no sign of the other werewolf, and when the sun came up they returned to their motel room tired and injured from the hunt. They’d managed to kill three monsters, but the fourth had eluded them and they needed to rest up for the next night. 

And check on Sam.

Except the motel room door had been broken, room trashed, blood everywhere, and Sam gone. “Sam?” John called out, Dean calling for “Sammy” simultaneously. They continued to yell as they searched the room, the car park, the bathroom, but both of them froze when they saw the bed sheets. 

“Is that…?” Dean began, unable to form the rest of the sentence. 

“We’ll find him Dean,” John said, knowing that with that much blood everywhere Sam had low chances of survival. 

“But what if-” 

“Dean! We will find him.” John spoke with conviction, not giving Dean any space to believe that Sam was dead. They had a job to complete, and they had to have a clear head for it. That meant that Dean needed to focus, and when they were done they could start tracking Sam. 

John wouldn’t tell him that he had a strong suspicion that Sam was dead. More than that, he thought that finishing the hunt would lead them to Sam’s body. In their haste they’d kicked through the ash that made up the remains of the werewolf, the case completed and no more leads to follow, nothing to lead them towards Sam or answers to what had happened to him. 

Except for the body in the woods behind the motel, heart ripped out and body clawed to pieces, and yet unmistakably Sam’s. 

“Sammy?” Dean asked, voice breaking, tears spilling in the presence of his father for the first time since he was truly a child. 

“Look away Dean,” John said, pulling his son away, holding him close to stop him from seeing the tears in his eyes. He knew he hadn’t been the best of fathers, not by a long shot, but he had still loved his sons, and he always would. 

Son. Not sons.

Sam was gone, dead, clawed apart by the werewolf he had been too slow to catch. His son was lying there in the woods, and he would have to watch him go up on a pyre, a true hunter’s funeral for a boy who had been too young. Just another victim of the supernatural. 

John didn’t let the tears spill as he lead Dean away, hoping to put him into the car whilst he took care of the body. He couldn’t let his son see him cry lest that break him even more. 

Dean needed to be strong, their hunt needed to be completed, and John would ensure that this monster, nor any other monster, would ever hurt anyone he cared about ever again. 

 

Xxx

 

Gabriel watched as John Winchester found the decoy body he’d snapped up, a perfect copy of Sam Winchester, except for the maiming. 

The archangel couldn’t help but feel true hatred for the eldest Winchester as he, seemingly emotionlessly, went about burning his son’s body, then throwing himself back into the hunt as if neither of his sons didn’t matter. 

Gabriel didn’t know that, inside, John was completely broken, that he wasn’t neglecting Dean to hunt because of some sick drive that had him value hunting above all else. All Gabriel knew was that John Winchester was a selfish bastard who didn’t deserve to ever see his youngest son again, and he deserved to live with the pain and guilt that Gabriel had left for him. 

Dean, on the other hand, was a different case. Gabriel would have also removed him from his father, except for the fact that the boy was the vessel of Michael, and someone up there was surely bound to notice if he suddenly went missing. No. It was best if Dean stayed with his father. Besides, Heaven wouldn’t let anything too bad happen to him. 

Right?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I would like to point out that originally Gabriel was going to be a hero, except then I was like hmm, maybe not. So now he is a bit of a hero, a bit of a villain, but I promise that I won't make you hate him.   
> Scout's honour!


	3. For the Greater Good... Right?

“Lo?” A small voice asked, making Gabriel lift his head towards the boy made to appear so small in the giant bed he lay in. 

“I’m here Sam,” Gabriel replied, kneeling by the boy and running his hand over his head. 

“You won’t- you won’t make me go back will you?” Sam asked, sniffing away the tears that he’d never been allowed to spill, and still wasn’t truly allowed thanks to Gabriel’s use of his grace to control Sam’s emotions. The boy’s face was smeared with snot, his mind only just pulling away from emotional turmoil. 

He was ten years old and he’d experienced more than he should have. And it was all Gabriel’s fault.

“I…” Gabriel began, but his throat clogged up before he could continue. Did he do this? Did he really go forward and act out his plans? He had put them together whilst Sam slept, except now that he was looking the boy in the eye he didn’t know if this was right. This was just a kid! He had no right to destroy his life, even if it were for the greater good. If he did he would be no better than Dad, than his brothers. 

But then… this boy was under his protection, and Gabriel had rescued him from an abusive household where he was thrust into danger every second he breathed. He would be safer with him, definitely. Certainly. Right?

“I want to protect you, keep you safe here away from your former family, but I can’t keep humans here.” Gabriel was in deep shit. 

“Are you not human?” Sam asked, terrified that he was about to be hurt again by what he was meant to hate. Except Lo had saved him. He was a good guy. 

“No, but I am not a monster,” Gabriel replied, using a tendril of his grace to soothe the boy’s emotions, try to keep him calm  enough for him to explain. “Tell me, do you believe in God?” Gabriel asked, trying for a different angle. 

“Yeah, Pastor Jim taught me about him,” Sam said, suddenly much more upbeat. 

“Well, there are many different gods, not just the one. Some are better than others, but your dad only ever told you about the bad ones.” He just needed Sam to believe him, and he didn’t want to have to mess with his head again. He couldn’t, he wouldn’t. 

“So you’re a good one? Which one?” Sam asked, eager to learn more, to know about who had saved him. 

“Loki, the Trickster,” Gabriel said, except Sam flinched at that one. 

“That sounds bad,” Sam said, growing steadily more uneasy as the seconds passed. 

“Why?” 

“Because… because tricking people means lying, and that is wrong.” Sam was so innocent, and yet wise beyond his years. He was just a boy forced to grow up to fast. 

“I only trick the bad people, give them what they deserve. I’m like a hunter, same as you, except I hunt the bad people whilst you hunt the bad monsters,” Gabriel explained, letting Sam see the more minor pranks and results of his work with but a touch to his forehead. 

“You’re a good guy then? You save people… like me,” Sam clarified, his trust in Gabriel returning. 

Great. Back to Gabriel’s plan. 

“Well, I want to, but you’ll have to go back to your father. Unless…” It had the desired effect, Sam’s suppressed tears finally pouring out, the boy lunging forward and clutching onto Gabriel, practically begging for his life. 

“Please please please no. Don’t send me back, please Lo! I’ll do anything!”

“Well there is one thing, but you won’t like it,” Gabriel replied, luring the boy in. 

“Tell me! I’ll do it!” Sam said, his whole body shaking with his sobs. 

“I’d have to make you like me, a trickster, a god.” This was it, the turning point of it all. If Sam said yes then he’d be immortal, unable to ever be possessed by Lucifer. Except if he said no then he was screwed; the issue with angels after all was that they needed consent. 

“I wouldn’t be human anymore?” Sam asked, red eyes meeting Gabriel’s, bloodshot from all his emotions pouring out. 

“No, but you would be safe, with me, away from your father and brother.”  _ Please say yes. Please say yes,  _ Gabriel begged. “And not human doesn’t mean monster.”

Sam fell silent for a moment, considering his next course of action. He would be a trickster, and despite what Lo said he’d still be a monster. He would be hunted forever, and he would hurt people forever if Lo were to be believed. 

But people had hurt him. More than that, his father had… he had… he couldn’t. He just couldn’t. Lo was offering him protection, a home, and power to help himself. Maybe he could help others too… 

There wasn’t much of a choice in the end. 

“Please, please do it, yes,” Sam begged, nodding his head as much as he could. 

“Ok then,” Gabriel replied, his signature smirk gracing his lips once again, there to hide the sadness within.

 

Xxx

 

Sam lay on Loki’s altar, irises, ferns, mistletoe, and foxglove arranged around him, sigils painted in blood adorning his naked body. Everything about the ritual was to tie him to Loki, to share everything with him and to tie Sam to Loki forever. 

“Lo?” Sam asked, the god taking his hand to reassure him. “Lo will this hurt? Please don’t make it hurt.”

“This won’t hurt too much, I promise,” Gabriel reassured before stepping back out of the circle of ancient runes on the floor. It was going to hurt a lot, which was why certain runes were to cancel the sound of Sam’s screams. 

“No please Lo! I’m scared! Please just- just let me go, please wait!” Sam wouldn’t stop crying, his emotions completely on the loose now that Gabriel was outside the circle, one that prevented any magic entering or leaving it. “PLEASE! PLEASE LO!” He was tearing his throat raw with his pleas, but Gabriel couldn’t hear them at all. 

He could imagine them though, thanks to the unbridaled terror on the boy’s face. 

_ This isn’t right,  _ Gabriel thought as he summoned his Pagan powers.  _ He’d just a kid, and he didn’t ask for this. Not really. He doesn’t know what he’s getting into, what I’m really doing here.  _

But this was for the greater good… right?

Right. And he was too deep now to back out. With that, Gabriel allowed his power to pour out of him, setting off the runes and sigils, and beginning the ritual once and for all. 

Pagan magic flooded Sam’s body, the boy arching off the table, mouth agape in a silent scream. Gabriel allowed half of his powers- his Pagan powers- to pour into Sam, each cell being infused with the magic before it finally pierced his soul, binding to it and tying it to the being it came from. Under the full moon Sam’s soul stopped being that of a human’s, his body itself becoming almost invulnerable, immortal, inhuman. 

Light flared and power exploded, dying down after an hour to reveal the latest trickster in the world. Sam was taller, glowing with health, every blemish that had ever tarnished his body erased. He was reborn…  _ reborn.  _

Gabriel hesitated, a final idea coming to mind, a terrible, horrible, monstrous idea. Gabriel crossed the boundary, his hand going to Sam’s forehead once again. He had to be quick, not willing to allow himself to talk himself out of the plan; with one final root through his mind, erasing everything about John and Dean, Mary and Bobby. Anything about hunting, about monsters, about his  _ life  _ was wiped away. Gabriel left only his knowledge of who he was, knowledge about the world and the supernatural, and his trust in the god himself.

Gabriel took all that tied him to his former life, and left behind the boy  _ reborn  _ as a trickster. 

Lifting the boy from the altar, Gabriel snapped them back to his home, lying the boy down in his bed once again. Sam was now completely under his protection, bound to him thanks to the power they shared. And once their shared power split completely and developed back into that of a normal trickster? Well by then Gabriel would bind Sam to himself in another way. 

But until then he was going to have so much fun. But it was all for the greater good… right?

 

Xxx

 

With the death of his son, John Winchester threw himself into hunting, Dean following him with a newfound thirst for blood. The pair were unstoppable, tearing through everything that came their way, never ceasing to hunt for even a day. 

They were magnificent. They were terrifying. 

Neither of them cared if they were hunting an innocent monster or not, their world cemented in black and white. They were unstoppable. 

Until they decided to bite off more than they could chew, the pair rushing into a vampire nest that was larger than any they’d ever seen, and old enough to be too much for them. John Winchester died eight years after he and Dean had become machines, his life buying Dean a chance to escape. 

Dean Winchester was twenty two when he was left alone. His mum, dad, and brother now all dead, Bobby having cut ties with the Winchesters after they lost all their compassion. The older man had tried to take Dean from his father, of course, but Dean’s stubborn will and John’s temper had blocked all attempts at that. Dean was on his own, hunting all that came across his path, desperate to avenge all those he’d lost. 

No monster deserved to survive whilst his family was in the ground. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I gotta say that I wrote this chapter, then reread it and completely changed direction... so yeah originally there was going to be less manipulation, absolutely no mind wiping, and a lot more emotional angst that would make you both love and hate Gabriel...   
> Now I'm just going to make you hate him. Ha.


	4. A Pair of Tricksters

Sam’s eyes fluttered open a week after the ritual, power humming under his skin. It was warm, safe, home.

“Lo?” Sam asked, his head too heavy to remember anything but that name.

“I’m here for you Sammy,” Gabriel replied, caressing Sam’s cheek as the hunter focused on him. “Tell me, what do you remember?” 

“I-” Sam began, trying to pull himself into a sitting position. “What’s happening?” Sam began to panic, his memory almost completely gone of… essentially everything. 

“Hunters,” Gabriel solemnly replied, suppressing his smirk when Sam shuddered. “They came whilst we were training, and they managed to get you really hard. They- they nearly had you, stake almost right in your heart.” Fake tears began to fall from Sam’s eyes, his hands flying to his chest. “I managed to get us out of there in time, heal you up before you could be killed, but it had started to kill you already. I guess your brain was damaged or something.” 

“I’m sorry,” Sam replied, clinging onto Gabriel’s shirt. “I’m sorry I got us caught. I won’t do it again.” 

“It’s ok, I understand,” Gabriel replied, stroking Sam’s hair, “but we will have to be more careful, train you up faster than I had expected.” 

“Yes, yes of course,” Sam replied, not at all remembering what had happened, but trusting Lo completely and so willing to do whatever he said. “How- how did you save me?”

“I had to tie my powers to yours, share them between us, so you may be a bit weak for a while.” Finally, some truth. 

“Thank you Lo, I promise to be better, to do better.”

“But just remember, hunters don’t ever give up, and I couldn’t get you out of there and kill them,” Gabriel warned, the last piece of the puzzle clicking into place. “They’re called the Winchesters, and they’re going to be coming for us.”

 

Xxx

 

By eleven Sam had full grasp of his powers, learning how to play minor tricks on people, doing everything that Gabriel said. He only wanted to do better, to be better, than he had before, and to avoid being caught again. 

By twelve Gabriel was helping Sam to refine his techniques, learning the fine art of being a trickster from the master himself. He followed Gabriel on his own pranks, learning exactly how to pick the right people and show them what they deserved. 

At thirteen Sam was doing well, Gabriel supervising him and ensuring he was safe, but often not having to step in too much. The Winchesters were making a name for themselves, Gabriel ensuring that Sam heard of every brutal murder they performed, keeping him scared enough to push himself harder, to be better, to never give up. Gabriel was shocked by Sam’s devotion, the boy never ceasing to work and only pausing when Gabriel pulled him away. 

Sixteenth birthday came and went, and Sam was a proper trickster, him and Gabriel keeping up a friendly rivalry, trying to reform more and more people in ever more elaborate tricks. Though his fear of the supernatural remained, their  powers were completely refilled and their abilities far above anyone else’s. They began to take risks, to thrive on the thrill, to have the hunters chase their tails trying to figure out what was going on. 

They loved it. They loved it being them against the world, together at every moment, living for the thrill and being bound by no laws. They would play tricks on all who deserved it, and prank the world to the end of the earth just to amuse themselves. 

But the most fun was from the pranks between themselves. Their powers allowed them to go as far as they wanted and never have to experience long lasting consequences, able to reverse the effects if they so wished. 

Sometimes they didn’t want to though. 

“LOKI!” Sam had roared the day he woke up, head completely devoid of his once shoulder length, beautiful hair. “I’M GOING TO KILL YOU!”

“Oh Samsquatch, that’s not a good look for you,” Gabriel had replied, cackling as he was chased around America by the furious trickster. 

Gabriel ended up with Cotton eyed joe on loop in his head for six months until he replaced Sam’s hair, having been driven almost completely insane by that wretched noise. 

“Tell me Sammy, how much do you love to read?” Gabriel asked, straddling Sam’s lap and forcing him to drop the book he had been reading. 

“How much do you love sugar?” Sam retaliated, pulling the lollipop from the god’s mouth and sucking on it himself. 

“Mmm fair point,” Gabriel replied. “Enjoy your reading!” Gabriel said, snapping himself away from the younger trickster. Sam didn’t notice anything the first day. He had a headache on the second, and everything began to blur by the third. He realised what had happened by the fourth, snapping himself to where Gabriel was but unable to properly make anything out and so tripping over their dog. 

“Bastard!” Sam snarled, hauling himself to his feet at the sound of Gabriel’s laughter. 

“What’s wrong Sammy boy? Is the world a bit hard to see?” 

“Take it back!” Sam demanded, but the following snap from Gabriel instead had glasses appearing on his face. The world was back to normal, but one look in the mirror had Sam paling considerably; huge, thick circular glasses that gave him eyes the size of golf balls were glued onto his face. He looked like an utter fool. 

“Well if that’s how we’re playing it,” Sam said, snapping his fingers and leaving after he played his retaliation.

Gabriel didn’t realise what had happened until he found that all sugar turned to ash in his mouth, rendering it absolutely disgusting. He reversed Sam’s eyesight almost immediately after that, and Sam lifted his own prank the next day after Gabriel had spent it begging to be released from the hell Sam was putting him through. After all, the rule was that neither of them could undo the other’s work. 

Sam had driven a hard bargain though, and he got his first kiss in the process from the god he had fallen in love with. The god whom he owed everything to, and could never live without. 

Gabriel had been waiting for the day that Sam admitted to loving him for years now, having also fallen in love with the boy that had changed his whole world. They couldn’t imagine living without each other, and they never would. 

Sam was eighteen when Gabriel brought up bonding completely, the pair to become essentially eternally married, able to feel what the other felt, to die together and never be separated. Gabriel, though, had ensured that Sam was completely sure of his answer of ‘yes’, and had made the boy wait a year before they completed the ritual. It was, after all, eternal, and eternity was not really something that an eighteen year old immortal could understand. 

By twenty Sam and Gabriel were bonded in all possible ways. By twenty one they forgot to fear the Winchesters, having finally heard about John’s death three years late, the other hunter apparently now more controlled, working with someone else. 

At twenty two Gabriel at last saw a fault in his plan; he had saved Sam Winchester, but Dean was still out there, still able to be manipulated into breaking the first seal. To make things worse, demons were looking for the lost vessel of Lucifer, and they would stop at nothing to find and manipulate him… 

Well in that case he’d just have to toughen the kid up… yeah… and definitely not just mess with the kid who had stood by and let Sam be abused… yeah definitely.

“Sammy, we need to plan a very important trick,” Gabriel said, bounding into Sam’s room and jumping onto his lap, the boy letting out a small ‘oof’. 

“And what trick is this?” Sam replied, running his hands up underneath Gabriel’s top, his hands roaming all over Gabriel’s chest. 

“Remember the Winchesters?” Gabriel whispered into Sam’s ear, but the boy froze and pulled away before anything could go further. 

“How could I forget?” Sam replied, completely losing the mood. 

“Dean Winchester needs to be taught a lesson,” Gabriel replied, smirking as Sam’s brain started to work. 

“Well let’s make it the best trick ever,” Sam replied, Gabriel’s smirk reflected on Sam’s own face. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yay a nice chapter for people!! I guess I'm changing my ways!


	5. Chapter 5

Sam Rancher was the latest librarian at Crawford Hall, having taken over after the previous person quit six years ago. Well actually the previous person had randomly decided to go on holiday for a month about two weeks back, conveniently getting them out the way. It hadn’t taken much on Gabriel’s part to temporarily alter the memories of people, and in the process making himself into the janitor, Louis Rancher. 

The name was Gabriel’s idea, Sam having been consuming a bag of jolly ranchers when he’d been picking names, and Louis being close enough to Lo that no one would question the nickname. And if anyone questioned the age gap between the two married men, or anything really about their relationship, they would find themselves sitting on a toilet for a week with explosive diarrhea. 

They had perfect covers. 

“Did you hear that the professor’s death made the papers?” Gabriel asked Sam, casually cleaning the whole library with a snap of his fingers so that no one could complain that he wasn’t doing his job. 

“You must be getting sloppy in your old age,” Sam replied, Gabriel taking the lollipop from the boy’s mouth and sucking on it himself. “It looked practically normal. How is a hunter meant to pick it up?” Sam asked with a smirk that was nearly identical to Gabriel’s. 

“Did you just call me old?” Gabriel countered, a look of fake hurt accompanying his gasp. 

“Yep,” Sam said, a pop on the ‘p’. 

“You’re up then,” Gabriel replied, walking away and leaving Sam to his own ‘job’, deciding that he should be seen doing  _ actual work  _ since Bobby and Dean were a day out. 

How was it fair that Sam got to read all day whilst he had to pretend to clean? Sam would have been the janitor if he hadn’t have had such good puppy eyes!

But yes, he was the janitor, and when Dean walked in with that older guy to ‘check the wiring’ he played his part to perfection, laying little hints here and there that he was the monster, but stopping any blame being placed on Sam. 

He wouldn’t risk Sam. Never. 

 

Xxx

 

“Anyway thanks,” Dean said as he and Bobby left the janitor, unconvinced that they actually had a case on their hands. 

“Ready for stage two?” Gabriel asked Sam, the pair curled up on their sofa in the pocket dimension apartment they called home. They watched the hunters on their enchanted tv, tuned in to whoever the tricksters were serving justice to at the time. 

“That depends,” Sam said, giving Gabriel a peck on the lips. “Am I allowed to actually take part in this prank?” Indeed Gabriel had had Sam practically locked up ever since the two hunters had crossed over the Ohio border. 

He was going crazy. Well. More crazy than he had already been; you couldn’t live as a trickster and not be a bit insane. 

“No.” Gabriel said, flicking Sam’s nose in affection. “I won’t risk losing you to these two.” That was, in part, true. Except not because the hunters were dangerous, but because he didn’t want to risk Sam’s memories bleeding through. He knew that they wouldn’t, his archangel powers being absolute. 

“I’m no longer a kid Lo!” Sam whined, completely juxtaposing his point. “Besides, Dean’s practically gone soft without his dad. He’s not anymore threatening than the other hunters we’ve met.” 

“You’re still training, Samoose,” Gabriel replied. 

“I’m perfectly capable ,” Sam countered, snapping up a bag of M&Ms and shovelling them into his mouth, snatching the bag away from Gabriel when he went to take a few. Gabriel whacked him in the arm for separating him from his sugar.

“Well for that you certainly aren’t coming!” Gabriel teased, but the following snap and disappearing act showing how he was actually serious. 

He wouldn’t lose Sam. Not now, not ever. Sam was  _ his.  _

But for now he had an alien to set on an asshole.

 

Xxx

 

“They’re useless!” Gabriel cried when he returned home, determined to find the solutions to his problems somewhere in his three tiered chocolate cake just waiting on the table. 

“Maybe you need some help,” Sam offered, coming up behind Gabriel and wrapping the smaller man in his arms, chin resting on Gabriel’s head. 

“Not yet. I won’t admit defeat!”

“Lo-” Sam sighed. 

“Nope! These buffoons will not get the best of the trickster!” Gabriel disappeared before Sam could reply. 

Aliens. Dean Winchester honestly thought they were hunting aliens. Well, he had until that Bobby Singer had beaten some sense into him. He was practically holding a neon sign up saying ‘trickster’! 

Stage three it was then. With a snap that sadistic animal torturer was being dragged down the sewers by an alligator. 

 

Xxx

 

Gabriel returned home the next day to find Sam sitting naked on top of a bed of candy, chocolate sauce sliding down his body. 

“Is it my birthday already?” Gabriel asked, his clothes disappearing with a thought. He was licking the chocolate off Sam’s abs in no time, working his way down, about to swallow down Sam’s cock before realising something was up. “What do you want?”   
“Must I want something to do this?” Sam coyly asked, fingers tracing patterns through the chocolate. 

“Yes.” 

“Why won’t you let me come help?” Sam asked, ripping Gabriel’s shirt open and starting to bite and lick his way down. 

“Because-” Gabriel began, a moan escaping him and cutting off what he was going to say next. “No,” he said, pushing Sam away and breathing deeply, not moving to help Sam up off the floor. 

“Why. Not?” Sam growled, removing all the sugar and replacing his clothes with a snap. 

“They’re dangerous!” Gabriel cried. 

“No. They’re not,” Sam replied. “I’ve faced way worse. Alone, no less. Why are you keeping me on lockdown!”

“Because I can’t lose you!” Gabriel screamed, turning back to Sam at last. “They hurt you, Sammy. I can’t risk that again. I can’t be alone again.” 

Sam just took a breath, calming himself with another. “I’ll stay here,” he said at last, walking out the room before he could hurt Gabriel further. 

 

Xxx

 

Sam was nothing if not head over heels for Lo, and therefore he trusted him. He may not like staying behind, but he would. 

For Lo. He’d do anything for Lo. Anything. He’d trade his life for Lo’s in an instant if he had to. Anything. 

So when Lo left for the final throw down with the hunters, Sam stayed behind. Lo against a Winchester and his friend. He’d be fine… right?

Dean Winchester may be soft, though, but he was still a Winchester. Still a killing machine, and never left a case unfinished. Lo had told him time and time again that he wanted to show the hunters how to see in shades of grey, that he wanted to talk to them to convince them to work for them, to give them a backdoor into the hunter world and exploit it to ensure they stayed off hunter radar forever. Sam had to admit that it sounded like the ideal outcome, what with them being able to then serve justice to the deserving without consequences. 

But it was Lo against a Winchester, one of the most ruthless hunters to ever walk the earth… and what if Lo couldn’t get him to see shades of grey long enough to talk? What if they staked him before he could show them who he played tricks on? What if they killed him?

Lo against a Winchester… 

Sam would do anything for Lo, even trade his life away to save the god he loved. He couldn’t leave Lo to face the hunters alone, not if it meant he could get hurt. 

With a snap he found himself at the doors to the auditorium, his bond with the god allowing him to sense where the other was. He snuck in, trying to avoid detection; if they knew he was there he wouldn’t be able to surprise them. 

He saw Loki sitting there whilst the hunters battled with his constructs, ostensibly without a care in the world, but Sam could see how tense he really was. 

_ Lo!  _ He thought, pushing it through the bond to reach the god. 

_ Sammy get out of here,  _ Lo replied. 

_ No. They could hurt you!  _

_ I’ll be fine, Sammy. You’re at risk by being here! Go back to the apartment.  _

Sam deliberated for a moment, his trust in Loki almost overriding his need to protect the man he loved. Almost. 

_ No.  _ Gabriel faltered for a moment, Sam’s love making him reckless, and he didn’t have a lie good enough to explain why Sam had to leave. 

_ Please,  _ Gabriel begged, needing Sam to stay safe.  _ Sam, plea-  _

Except the two tricksters had been so caught up in their silent conversations that they’d gotten sloppy, that they’d taken their eyes of the hunters. And Loki’s brief faltering at Sam’s defiance had allowed his constructs to slip, allowed Dean to jump through and plunge the stake through his chest. 

Someone was screaming, was tearing their vocal chords to pieces with that awful noise, screaming like their whole world was being torn apart whilst they were helplessly drowning in the pain. Because that was exactly what was happening. 

Sam felt it. He actually  _ felt  _ it when the stake pierced Loki’s heart, could feel as it started to destroy their bond, as Loki began to die. And it  _ hurt.  _

He surged forward, desperate to save Loki, to kill the hunters, to do  _ something.  _

But he could only hold Loki as he slumped forward, Dean so shocked by Sam’s screams that he took a step back, then another, then another. After all, they didn’t have another stake to kill Sam, since they didn’t have it dipped in one of his own victim’s blood. They couldn’t kill the monster in front of them, and so it was safest to back up. Slowly. 

“Loki, Lo, please please please,” Sam murmured, calling out to someone,  _ anyone,  _ to save him. To save the man, the  _ god,  _ he loved above anything else. “Please please please,” Sam continued to cry. 

Sam didn’t know that Loki wasn’t Loki, but Gabriel. He didn’t know that the stake wouldn’t kill him properly, that he would wake up in a few hours completely fine, that he was just falling unconscious whilst his body healed from something that was meant to kill  _ part  _ of him. Sam didn’t know that he was alive. 

He only knew  _ pain.  _

“YOU DID THIS!” Sam screamed, turning his pain into rage, directing every last drop of it at Dean, at the man who had taken Loki from him. He didn’t realise that his bond to the god was still there, was telling him that Loki was alive, because the bond was too weak at that moment to do anything. 

“Bobby!” Dean cried, hoping that the elder hunter had an idea of what to do, of how to kill a monster they couldn’t kill. 

Sam leapt forward with unhinged fury, his emotions making his attacks sloppy but still landing hard. He would kill Dean, but he wanted him to suffer first, wanted him to know as much of his own pain as he could. He  _ needed  _ Dean to know that he had destroyed  _ everything  _ that made his life worth living. He wanted him to suffer. 

Dean was no match for the trickster on top of him, one that wasn’t slowed down by a round of bullets fired into his chest, one whose strength drastically outmatched his. 

But Sam was sloppy, and Bobby took that chance to plunge the stake that had killed Loki through Sam’s back, the trickster slumping forward and landing on Dean’s bloody corpse. 

“It won’ kill ‘im, but it’ll buy us enough time t’ find a way t’ kill ‘im,” Bobby said, giving Dean a hand to haul him to his feet. “He’ll be unconscious until he heals, so bring ‘is body and we’ll tie ‘im up. I’ve got a place t’ keep ‘im.” 

No. The stake wouldn’t kill Sam since it didn’t have the blood of one of his victims on it, but it did render him useless, unable to stop the hunters from taking him far away from Gabriel, to Bobby’s panic room where they’d hold him until they could kill him. 

And Gabriel didn’t know. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I gave you a happy chapter last time, so I had to correct the balance! Did I do well?


	6. Navigating the tricks

“You have a panic room?” Dean asked, awed by what he was seeing. “When did you get a panic room?”   
“I had a week off,” Bobby replied, as if it were the most obvious thing in the world. 

“You’re awesome,” Dean remarked, not missing the way Bobby swelled up with pride at that. 

“Anyway, bring the trickster in ‘ere,” he said, Dean leaving for a moment only to return with an unconscious and handcuffed Sam in his arms. “Tie ‘im up in the middle there.” 

Neither spoke until Sam was bound to an old, bloodsoaked wooden chair in the middle of the room. “Right,” Bobby said, looking around at the wards on the walls. “I’ve got to change a few of these, an’ that’ll make it impossible for ‘im to leave alive, put some extra strong ones up to; don’t know how many friends this one has, so I’ve got t’ make sure nothing can sense ‘im or ‘is power from within ‘ere. You stay ‘ere and wait for ‘im to wake up.” 

Dean settled down outside the door, waiting to hear anything to show that the trickster was alive. 

“Here,” Bobby grunted, handing over a book as he returned from upstairs, a mountain of other books in his arms. “Read up on trickster law. See if there’s a way to kill ‘em without their vic’s blood.” 

Dean took  the book with only a small amount of groaning, opening it up to page one and settling in for research. 

  


Xxx

  


Sam just lay there, agony filling every piece of him. 

Except it wasn’t from the stake, wasn’t because he was healing from that. It was because he had lost the only man he’d ever loved, their bond shredded so he couldn’t feel anything on the other end. 

Gone. Loki was  _ gone.  _ Dead because of him, because he’d distracted him, gone against what he’d said out of stupidity. And now Loki was dead, and he wasn’t. 

It should have been him.  _ Sam  _ should be the corpse, Loki still alive and kicking, still tricking people into better ways.  _ He shouldn’t be dead! _

But he’d get his revenge, kill the hunters who took everything from him, and then he could join Lo in Purgatory, where they could be together forever. He could see him again. 

He  _ would  _ see him again, no matter what. No matter what.

But until then, it  _ hurt.  _ It was as if someone had torn out his heart and replaced it with a ball of knives, constantly cutting him open and shredding him. Tears were right there, waiting for the right moment to spill, but Sam’s determination to remain strong for Lo keeping them at bay. 

Consciousness returned slowly, slow enough that he managed to control his breathing to maintain the illusion of sleep, thus allowing him to deduce that he was tied up somewhere cold, and that his powers were just out of reach. Great. Hunters had him. 

Winchester had him.

Maybe they could kill him, let him pass on to Loki.  

That thought caused a hitch in his breathing, one that Dean picked up on immediately. 

“I know you’re awake, so you might as well open your eyes,” the hunter growled, coming into the room properly, joints sore from remaining in that one position just outside the open door for hours. 

“You killed him,” Sam gasped, unable to hold the pain back, unable to control it when faced with Lo’s killer. 

“Who? Your trickster buddy? Yeah, he’s dead and gone, and you will be too soon,” Dean remarked. 

“Oh really?” Sam asked, turning his grief to rage in an instant. “You think you can hold me? Kill me? Do you have the blood of my victims?”

“We’ll find a way,” Dean said, turning to go. 

But Sam wasn’t done with him yet. 

“I got to say,” Sam drawled, looking around the room. “I expected more from the famous Winchesters. Oh wait, Winchester. There’s only one of you now.” 

His nose cracked under Dean’s fist, blood spilling down his face after. The man had been across the room in seconds, the fury in his eyes reminding Sam of why he once feared the Winchesters.  

Maybe Loki would still be alive if he’d remained scared, listened to Lo, not overestimated his ability or underestimated Lo’s. 

Maybe he would be alive if Sam’d been better. 

“Don’t talk about my father that way,” Dean growled, temper flaring up. How dare he! How dare this monster talk about John that way! “He was a good man, put down lots of monsters like you!”   
“So nearly killing a child makes you a hero?” Sam snarled, unable to hold back from poking that particular wound. 

“What?” Dean asked, an absolutely incredulous look on his face. 

“Don’t remember? You and your father attacked me as a child, practically killed me. Does that sound like the actions of a hero to you?” He’d started off trying to play smart, but now Sam just wanted to hurt this son of a bitch. Maybe then he’d feel a fraction of what Sam was going through. 

“I’ve never hunted a trickster before. Don’t know what you’re talking about,” Dean said, walking back towards the door. He’d been through enough interrogation sessions to know when a monster was just trying to get a rise out of you, make you think yourself in circles. 

“Eleven years ago. Maybe see if your father kept a record of what he did to us, to me. Maybe then you’ll see how much of a monster he was.” 

The panic room door slammed shut, Dean’s anger and grief coming to the surface at the trickster’s words; eleven years ago was when he lost Sammy, and his father too in the process. He maybe even lost a part of himself. 

But him and his dad had done all of their hunts together that year, John unwilling to let Dean out of his sight, so he knew for certain that they’d not hunted a trickster. 

Once Dean was gone, Sam finally let the tears fall. 

  


Xxx

  


Gabriel woke two days after being stabbed, his chest hurting like hell. But he wasn’t dead, so he couldn’t complain. 

Looking round, he realised he was still in the auditorium, the hunters long gone. 

Sam too. 

_ No,  _ he thought, remembering Sam, remembering how the boy had come for him.  _ No no no no no.  _ Sam wouldn’t have left him voluntarily, not by a long shot. Even if he’d thought Gabriel dead then he would have taken his body, given him a proper burial. 

It wasn’t hard to realise what had happened, but Gabriel was practically in denial by that point. 

He snapped himself to their apartment, frantically searching for the boy but finding only Dog. Thank dad he’d made a refilling bowl for the small creature, else he’d have died by now; the only things he could be one hundred percent certain on were that he’d been out for two days, and that Sam was gone. 

And so was their bond. 

The lights flickered, windows cracked, and room shook as Gabriel began to panic, powers beginning to run awry with his emotions. Their bond was gone, completely gone. Shredded. One of two things could have happened, the first being that the stake had killed the pagan side of him, and therefore the pagan bond was destroyed in the process, his grace not healing it. The second?    
He didn’t want to go there, couldn’t go there, couldn’t think of Sam as dea-

No. Not dead. He was alive. He  _ had  _ to be. 

But when he cast his mind out, searching for any sign of the young trickster, he found nothing. Nothing. No power, no soul. No Sam. 

The room, the apartment, everything in the pocket dimension was blown to smithereens with the explosion of Gabriel’s powers. Except Dog, of course. 

It wasn’t enough. 

He rebuilt the world then destroyed it again, and again, and again, pouring his rage and grief and panic and fear into his actions, desperately working the edge off his emotions, working off his fear over what Sam had done. 

He couldn’t be dead. He refused to believe it, because if he was… 

If he was then Gabriel would never see him again; he’d made the boy a trickster to save him, to make him unusable, but that meant that his afterlife was Purgatory, the one place he couldn’t go. 

Sam was dead. 

Dead. Gone. All because he’d been too busy trying to steal him out from under destiny’s nose. Maybe this was his punishment. Maybe this was his father’s way of getting back at him. 

“WELL SCREW YOU TOO!” Gabriel screamed, the words directed towards the world’s worst father. 

He kept creating, and kept destroying. On and on, unable to see past the grief in his heart. When that didn’t help, he returned to the real world, mercilessly screwing with people. Those who deserved death had brutal endings, and even those who didn’t found themselves dead before their time. 

People didn’t deserve to live, not when they’d taken Sam from him, taken the one good thing in his life. Let the apocalypse happen, let Dean see in black and white for the rest of his life, let the angels manipulate him because of his blindness. Gabriel wouldn’t kill the boy, wouldn’t even touch him; he deserved to be played by fate, deserved to destroy the world, just as he’d destroyed Gabriel’s. 

_ Let it all burn,  _ Gabriel thought. 

And in that moment he understood how John Winchester had come to be the man he was. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well this is getting fun!


	7. And it goes wrong

“This doesn’t add up,” Dean groaned for the umpteenth time, his hair standing on end from all the times he’d run his hands through it. 

“Yeh said that already,” Bobby sighed, reading through his lore on tricksters whilst Dean checked John’s journal. 

“Nothing. There’s nothing about tricksters in here at all, and not even possibly a trickster. He’s- he’s gotta be lying, right?” 

“I don’t know,” Bobby admitted. “I mean, if he were lying, the trick is meaningless. If it’s the truth, there’s no evidence. I agree, boy, it makes no sense.” 

“I’m just- I’m gonna talk to him, see if he reveals anything.” 

“Sure that’s wise?”

“No, but I don’t exactly have a choice here.”

 

Xxx

 

Sam had been alone for hours, and he had almost drowned in his tears. Loki, his mate, was gone.  _ Gone.  _ The bond between them absolutely shredded, and he couldn’t feel anything other than an all-consuming emptiness within, yet he felt too much at the same time. 

He’d lost everything; Loki, his powers, his freedom. He had nothing left but hurting these hunters, but even that seemed almost worthless now. 

But the door opened, and his grief turned to anger when he saw those green eyes. 

Dean dragged a chair over, sitting down directly in front of Sam, his gun loosely grasped in his hand. “Tell me, if you’re really something I’ve hunted, why aren’t you dead?” 

“Maybe you’re not as good as you thought,” Sam spat back, seeing red. 

“Now I know that we left nothing alive that year, and more than that, I know that we never even caught a whiff of a trickster. Lie to me again and I’ll shoot you.”

“You brought me here. You want me alive,” Sam replied, his bitch-face almost able to kill. 

Dean’s response was to shoot Sam in the leg, eliciting a scream from the trickster’s throat. “That’s not very nice,” Sam spat. 

“I’m not a nice guy, and if you go out a bit more bloody than now, that means nothing to me.”  _ There  _ was the hardened hunter raised by a grief-stricken man. There was half of the most deadly duo in the hunting community, a duo that caused hunters to shudder when they heard their names. “Let’s start with a name.” No answer, one bullet through the knee, one more scream. “Try again.” Another bullet, another cry. “Name.”   
“Sam,” he spat, spit flying from his mouth as he strained against his bindings. Another shot, this one through his hand. “ _ I told the truth! _ ”

“Don’t you  _ dare.  _ Just don’t you  _ dare! _ ” He struck Sam with the but of his gun just for that jab. No one, not even Bobby, was allowed to say that name. No one. 

“I can’t lie, I can’t tell the truth, I can’t stay silent. I’m starting to think you’re just a sadistical-” He didn’t get to finish, Dean’s fist flying into his face and shattering his nose, then jaw, before he was finally knocked out. 

“Dean!” Bobby called out, flying into the panic room to pull the hunter away from what was but a twitching mass of blood and flesh, only discernible from a corpse by its shallow breaths.”We need ‘im alive, you idgit!” 

“He deserves it,” he snarled back, the wild look in his eyes one that Bobby hadn’t seen in a long time. 

“No. Not now. What did he even do?”   
“He said- he said his name’s-” 

He didn’t need to finish that sentence for Bobby to understand what had happened. “Look, jus’ take a walk. I’ll deal with this.” 

He didn’t want to, but Dean saw the truth in Bobby’s words, and that was what caused him to trudge up the stairs and out through the door, his walk turning into a crowbar smashing up old rusted piles of metal. 

It took three rags and four bowls of water before Sam remotely resembled himself again, Bobby having cleaned him up to make sure none of his injuries were life-threatening. He sat there for a few hours, making his way through a book and a half of lore before Sam coughed his lungs up and opened his eyes. 

“‘Bout time,” he huffed, setting down the book. 

“What is this, good cop bad cop?” Sam croaked, his face throbbing and burning at the same time. 

“Somethin’ like that, yeah,” Bobby agreed. “Tell me, what’s your name?”   
“Sam.”

“Really?” 

“Why would I lie?” It was actually bothering him a lot that these hunters were too thick-skulled to know a name when they heard one. “Would you like to see my birth certificate?”   
“So you’re Sam, and the WInchesters hunted you eleven years ago despite there bein’ no evidence of it.” He was talking to himself more than anything, never being one for coincidences. “How old are ya, Sam?”   
“What, is this twenty questions?” Even broken like this, he still had that spark of snark, one that Loki could never get enough of. But one look at the man’s serious face had him answering “Twenty two.” 

“Let me guess, you’ve done your research and you’re posin’ as the lost Winchester to mess with us.”   
“There’s another one of them? Wow, he’s probably a messed up kid.” 

“Was. He died eleven years ago, and his name was Sam.” 

Rage turned to doubt turned to dread, Sam also not one for coincidences at all, and his lack of memories from his first eleven years didn’t pose well at all. But Lo wouldn’t have- couldn’t have- 

It was a trick, all an elaborate trick, one that someone had pulled to mess him up even more. “Are there more of you out there?” Bobby eventually asked, getting right to the point, not willing to grow emotional during an interrogation. 

“More tricksters? You think we’re common? No, we’re too awesome to be anything but rare.” He wouldn’t show his grief, wouldn’t think about how he was the only one left, wouldn’t think about how Lo was rotting somewhere, that he was stuck in Purgatory because of him. He wouldn’t think any of that. 

“You’re the only two?” Bobby asked, catching the meaning beneath the boy’s words. 

“Yep,” Sam replied, popping the ‘p’. “We work fast enough for you to mistake Lo as a few people, though it’s only ever been him, and now me.”

“Lo? As in Loki?” Shit. He’d slipped. 

Sam just shut his mouth and looked away, refusing to answer anymore questions fired his way, and eventually Bobby just left him. 

But Bobby was just as lost as Sam; the lore told of tricksters throughout history. There was Loki, Anansi, Coyote. Hunters had hunted tricksters and killed them throughout history, and yet this kid was claiming there were only two. It made no sense, and he didn;t even know where to start in sorting it out. 

But one thing he knew for certain was that, even if Loki was all these other tricksters, there was no reason why a twenty-two year old trickster would suddenly turn up now. In fact, the only reason why Sam down there would have turned up, would be because Loki had actively interfered, although why now? And more than that, Bobby knew that he’d had kids, and none of them had turned out as tricksters. 

Which meant that that boy down there wasn’t a normal trickster, and Bobby knew, he just  _ knew,  _ that that boy was Sam Winchester. 

He just had to prove it. 

One phone call and a day later, and Pamela Barns was walking through his front door and down those stairs to Sam, pulling her psychic thing to root through his head amid much protest, and pulling out anything he could about his life. 

It took three hours of the boy being under before they got anything. 

“Sam, what happened?” Pamela had asked, having finally broken through layers upon layers of false memories, finally unleashing the true ones. 

“Werewolf,” Sam moaned, thrashing against his bindings as he tried to protect himself from what had happened. “No don’t. Please don’t. PLEASE!” 

“Sam, listen to me and only me. The werewolf isn’t here, he can’t hurt you. Tell me, what happened?” 

Neither Dean nor Bobby needed to hear anymore, though, because they both knew perfectly well that their Sammy had been killed by a werewolf. Or so they thought, because there Sammy now lay, older and more supernatural than he’d started out as, but alive. 

Except he wouldn’t open his eyes.  

 

Xxx

 

He was Sam Winchester, the son of John WInchester and brother to Dean, a snot-nosed little kid who had been attacked and raped by a werewolf his family had been hunting. He had been stolen by a trickster, one who had manipulated his mind before wiping it completely, molding him into someone completely different. 

He had been Sam, Sammoose, Sam-a-lam, Sammich, and more. He had been Loki’s ward, lover, mate. He had been a trickster, and it had all been a lie, a trick. 

It took a week for him to open his eyes, another to be able to speak again, to be aware enough to speak, but he never left the panic room; he didn’t want to feel those powers, to feel what Loki had done to him. Not yet, anyway. 

“Dean,” he’d said, startling his  _ brother  _ from his light nap from besides Sam’s bed, Dean and Bobby having moved some more furniture and books down there for Sam to enjoy himself with. 

“Sam?” 

“Yeah. Yeah, I’m Sam.” 

“And- and you- do you remember me?” Dean stood, coming to sit next to Sam on the bed. 

“Yeah, yeah you’re my big brother.” The words brought a smile to his face, and the conversation that followed brought laughter and tears and smiles and frowns as the boys recalled memories from their brief time together. 

It hadn’t been much at all, and the two men needed to get to know each other all over again, sort out what Sam had gone through, figure out where to go next, but now two things were certain in Sam’s mind. 

One, that he was Sam Winchester, brother to Dean and son of John. He was meant to grow up loved and cared for by the man next to him, and he’d been robbed of his life by a selfish god for reasons unknown, one who was the god of lies, who could have been lying the whole time. 

And two, was that he now  _ hated  _ Loki. 

 

Xxx

 

Gabriel had slaughtered his way across the world in the name of justice, the bastards he’d normally let off with a trick now meeting their own gory ends, and it made the archangel laugh. Not because it was fun, not because he enjoyed it, but because he had fallen so far that this was now his life. It was a mockery of the divine being he’d once been, and that was funny to him.

His bond was destroyed, and his mate was gone, and he was nothing. 

“Gabriel,” a voice said from behind the archangel, one that belonged to a being who he hadn’t heard from in a long while. 

“Death,” Gabriel coldly replied, almost all emotions bar rage and grief escaping him. “What brings you here?”   
“You’ve upset the balance of this world, something that’s hard to do, and I now have to clean up your mess.” The man stood by the archangel’s side, neither reacting to the screams of the man burning at their feet. 

“So?” 

“If you continue on this path, I will have no choice but to interfere in a drastic way.” 

“Kill me then. See if I care.” He turned to leave, his wings spreading wide, but Death caught him before he could fly. 

“What happened to you, Gabriel?” He was old, and he had watched as the archangels were formed. There had been something about them, Gabriel especially, that had drawn him in; they were pure beings, and Gabriel had always been able to make him laugh, had even introduced him to pizza and other fast foods some years ago. 

“He’s dead.” There it was. Those two words, two he hadn’t been able to say aloud before now. Two words cementing the fate of a man he’d loved more than anything. 

“Who?” 

“Sam Winchester.”

“Really? I didn’t know that.” Death smiled as he left, Gabriel freezing completely. 

No.  _ No.  _ No, if this was a trick, if this was false hope, then it would tear him apart. But if it was true, if Sam were alive… 

He couldn’t sense him, not at all, but Death wouldn’t lie, and Winchester was the best chance of finding him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> HA. HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA. Oh, and did I mention HA!  
> :)


	8. I hate you

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I was about to go to sleep when I realised I hadn't updated recently! So here is a (likely shitty) chapter for your enjoyment! :)

Things weren’t perfect for Sam, but they were improving. 

In the few days since he’d opened his eyes, he’d been able to get to know Dean some more, understand who his brother was and what had happened to him since he’d been… taken. He knew now that John had tried to protect Dean, making him the best hunter he could be to ensure he was prepared for what came next, that both men had gotten drunk on the anniversary of his ‘death’ each year, as well as his birthday. In some sick, twisted way, John had cared about his sons. Dean had dropped out of high school first chance he had, being the loyal little soldier up until his Dad’s death, at which point he’d come back to Bobby and fallen in with the old man. Best of all, the Impala was Dean’s baby, Sam’s old home still there for them to share, or so he hoped. 

Dean learnt about how Sam had no memory before that night, having been told that it was  _ John  _ who attacked him, earning that consent to make him a trickster, and then Loki had just wiped his memory and spun a web of lies, just because dealing with a terrified and traumatised kid had been too much for him. Dean discovered just how close the pair of tricksters had become, how Sam had had a bond with the trickster, one that now lay in pieces. 

Loki was dead, yes, but Sam couldn’t help but feel that the god was still with him… somehow… 

The one time he’d tried to leave the panic room had ended badly; his powers rushed back, the feeling of Loki surrounding him, tainting him, ruining him. It had been… it had been awful, enough that he ended up a heap on the floor, back to a state of silence. He didn’t want to feel the god, to have anything to do with him at all. 

He didn’t want to be a trickster anymore. 

Loki had done this to him, so they could undo it. Hopefully. 

That was why the contents of Bobby’s library had been transferred to the panic room, the trio researching around the clock for any information on what Loki had done, how he had done it, how to reverse it, anything in the past that had been similar. Anything, literally, that could relate to what had happened. Two days into it and they were failing to make any headway, but they wouldn’t give up. 

And then Loki himself turned up.

 

Xxx

 

Gabriel had wanted to fly right over to Winchester and demand he returned his Sammy, but just as he’d gone to spread his wings, a stab of pain and hatred so strong shot down the ruined bond, stabbing him right through the chest. It was barely a moment, but the pure loathing he’d felt was enough to incapacitate him for nearly a day, and by the time he was conscious again, he had to know what it was that had done that. 

It took some soul (read: grace) searching, but eventually he found where a minute link had reformed between himself and Sam, which meant that that hatred was  _ from  _ Sam. Winchester… it must have been directed at Winchester… 

He flew, reaching out for that idiotic Righteous Man’s soul, flying right to it and landing with a flutter of wings. 

“Sam,” he breathed, his Sam skittering off a bed, pushing Winchester and the old man behind him… to protect them from  _ him.  _

_ Dead. He’s meant to be- He was- I don’t- DEAD! He was gone. I was safe.  _ Sam’s thoughts began to spiral at the sight of his captor.

_ Oh shit,  _ Gabriel thought, suspecting the worst, but not wanting to jump to conclusions quite yet. 

“No. No you- you go. Go away!” Sam stuttered, fear mingling with his fury, the combination allowing his out of reach power to rise up, taunt him with how close they were, but how far too. 

No. Not his power. He didn’t want it. It wasn’t his.

“Sam?” Gabriel asked. This wasn’t right. It wasn’t meant to be  _ him  _ that Sam feared and hated; it was meant to be Winchester! “Sam just- just come here, let’s talk.”

“What, you want me to listen to your lies? Let you pull me back in just like that?” The younger trickster didn’t want to admit it, but tears threatened to spill; it was all just so- so- so  _ much!  _ This was Lo! The man who’d raised him, protected him, loved him. This was Loki. The god who’d stolen him, tricked him, manipulated him. This was too much. 

“Please, Sam, just let me explain,” Gabriel begged, hands out as if to calm a startled animal. 

“He don’ have t’ listen to a word yeh say,” Bobby growled, Dean opting for a more wordless response as he drew his gun and fired three shots into Gabriel’s chest. 

It did nothing. 

“Sam,” Gabriel tried again, the hunters inconsequential to him now. “Sam just, please, it wasn’t a lie. Everything you felt, I felt. I love you, Sammy!”   
“ _ No! _ ” Sam roared, his powers cut off within the confines of the panic room, but just so close. He yearned for them, needing to push it all back at the god, to ruin him the way he’d been ruined, to  _ break  _ him. 

“You leave him alone, you son of a bitch,” Dean growled, uselessy firing at Gabriel again, this time aiming for the head. 

Sam wouldn’t admit that he’d felt a stab of worry when the bullets met their mark. 

“Enough of this,” Gabriel growled, snapping his fingers and stopping all time, Dean and Bobby suspended in stasis, a snapshot of time. “Sam, come home, let me explain.”   
“No.” He was firm, not moving. 

“Sam-”   
“ _ No  _ Loki.” He’d never called him Loki, only ever Lo. “You don’t get to do anything else, ever again.” It was meaningless, Sam knew, because if Loki really wanted to take him away again, nothing would be able to stop the god. But he hadn’t taken him, which meant he had a choice, a chance. “Did you ever love me?” Sam asked, but he pushed on without an answer. “Was it all a lie? A trick? One of your twisted games designed to destroy me? Was I one of those monsters you hunt? I’m not playing your games anymore, I’m done, and I’m glad our bond is gone, because I  _ hate  _ you, and if you don’t leave, I’m going to kill you, powers be damned.” The tears began to fall. He didn’t care. 

“Sam,” Gabriel choked, that one syllable all he could say when every word Sam said put another knife through his heart. 

“I hate you, and I will kill you if it’s the last thing I do,” Sam vowed, every ounce of love he’d once had, now a blistering inferno within him. He understood what had happened to John Winchester now, too. 

Gabriel clenched his jaw, pushing the tears back as much as possible. He couldn’t do it, start over with the boy he loved above all else… he could, but could he…? Would it be right? To remember this moment? One that would be seared into his mind forever? He loved Sam, Sam had loved him, could love him again. He could be better, do better, kill Winchester and his friend, make sure Sam never heard about Winchesters again. He could do it… 

But he’d always remember the boy as he stared him down, vowing to kill him more than he already had. 

“I love you,” he said, a final plea for the boy to come listen. 

“I hate you,” Sam replied, cold and dead inside, ruined by what Gabriel had done, by the circles he’d run himself in, trying to figure out what was real and what wasn’t, what was a manipulation and what was real. 

Gabriel risked a peak into his mind, seeing everything, every ounce of hatred, of desperation to be rid of anything linking him to being a trickster, to  _ him.  _ “Fine,” he finally said, the one word devoid of all emotion, each and every feeling he had locked away, the key lost forevermore. “Fine, if that’s what you want.”

He snapped, and three things happened. One, he left. Two, time returned to its normal passage. Three, Sam fell to the floor, his powers ripped from him, his mind readjusting, his body shutting down until it was human again. 

Gabriel had left, yes, but he had seen Sam’s truest desires, and though he couldn’t grant him all of them, he could at least do this one last thing for him. 

When he’d next see the boy, he didn’t know, but he dreaded the day he’d see Sam Winchester, hunter extraordinaire, plunging a stake into his heart, maybe even an archangel blade, one day, seeing as Dean had proven to be completely and utterly black and white. When that day came, Gabriel would accept his death without complaint, and he’d allow Sam that one final gift. 

When, not if, because the only thing Sam desired more than his humanity, was Loki’s dead body at his feet, and the trickster’s blood on his hands. 


	9. We're all monsters, really

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Welcome back my lovely readers. Sorry to keep you waiting. Hope you love it!

Sam woke three weeks later. Dean had spent the whole time alternating between drinking and research, but he ultimately found nothing on what to do. Bobby had the same problems, although he was slightly more sober than his younger counterpart. 

But in the end, Sam woke on his own, and the first thing he noticed was the lack of something he’d never been without; his trickster persona, his immortality. 

It was all well and good to say he wanted to rid himself of all links to Loki, but to awake with his immortality stripped away and newfound vulnerability in the forefront of his mind. It was… it was unsettling, and had him unable to move lest he cracked like glass. 

“Sam? Are ye awake boy?” Bobby asked, coming down the stairs with great echoing steps. 

“I- yes. I am awake,” Sam said, sitting up. “He- he took it. He took it.” Tears threatened to spill, and then they did. “He took it,” Sam repeated again and again, Bobby sitting on the cot to comfort him, pulling his tall figure into his chest, allowing him to soak his shirt with his pain. 

“What did he take?” Bobby asked at last, there being no question of who ‘he’ was. 

“He took it,” Sam repeated, gasping but no longer crying. “He took the power back.”

“Well tha’s good, right?” 

“Yes. No. I don’t know.” 

“Well,” Bobby thought, “if yeh aren’t a trickster anymore, you can come upstairs and see the rest of the house, put Dean out of his misery and all.”

“I um, yes, I will then,” Sam agreed, trying to ignore himself as he stood, unable to comprehend how mortal men went about their day, blood thrumming through their veins, each pump of blood one closer to death. Each drop of blood was required to keep him alive, not one able to be wasted. 

“Bobby?” Dean asked, stumbling down the stairs as Sam ascended. “What are you…” He saw Sam, and he trailed off. “Sammy, you’re alive.”   
“More than ever,” Sam said, meaning too much but unable to convey enough. 

“I um,” Dean began, clearing his throat. “Do you, you know, feel better?”

“I feel more human.”   
Dean didn’t speak for a moment, the words working their way through his alcohol soaked mind. “That’s brilliant, Sammy. How?” He said the last part to Bobby, expecting his father to have sorted it all through, to have found some spell whilst he was asleep. 

“Loki. He did it when he… when he came,” Sam admitted. Yes, he was grateful for his humanity, but it came at the cost of Loki’s touch. 

“That son of a bitch.”

“Why am I so- so-” Sam couldn’t put it into words, couldn’t explain how he could feel his life slipping away, could feel each thrum of his heart as if it were his last. 

“Why don’t you come eat somethin’,” Bobby offered, and Sam could only agree. “Here ye go,” he said, placing a plate of eggs and bacon in front of the two boys, something he wouldn’t normally do. 

“Thank you,” Sam said, a newfound hunger overtaking him at the scent of the food, forcing him to scoff it down without a care for the taste. The taste. It was wrong. So wrong. Not sweet. Not right. Wrong. So wrong. 

He coughed and spluttered into the sink, every drop of that filth escaping him as Dean rubbed his back. 

“What was that?” Sam asked, convinced he’d been poisoned. 

“Eggs,” Bobby huffed in response. 

“I um, do you have anything more… sweet?” 

“I ain’t gettin’ you back t’have ye die of diabetes. Eat this,” Bobby said, tossing an apple Sam’s way, something sweet that wouldn’t kill the boy. 

Sam grimaced, biting into it to find an immediate burst of sour, only for it to fade away into the sugar he so desired and needed. “I can’t get diabetes,” Sam said, speaking before he thought about what he was saying. 

Dean laughed, trying to hide the pain of the reminder beneath. “I guess you’ll have to relearn how to do do a lot of things.”

“Like how to eat eggs. They’re healthy, good for you,” Bobby sulked, the rare occasion he chose to cook being the occasions he expected not to be insulted by people throwing his food up in disgust. 

“I guess I’m just not used to the taste,” Sam said with a smile, returning to his seat to try his taste buds on the bacon. He mixed it with bites of the apple, allowing it to become bearable. 

“Well, you’re a Winchester, so the next weapon is how to shoot,” Dean announced, and that was that. 

 

Xxx

 

Sam may have lost a lot, but his reflexes were not at all too far gone, his sight better than they would have thought. He had perfect aim within a fortnight. 

Another thing he hadn’t lost was his mind. Loki had taught him all about the supernatural, about every creature out there bar a select few. The god hadn’t expected him to use it to harm them, to hunt them, and Sam couldn’t help but feel it was the perfect revenge for to use it for that very reason. 

He’d put a bullet in the brain of everything Loki had taught him of. 

 

Xxx

 

The Winchester brothers were together again, and they were unstoppable. 

Dean was ruthless, cutting through the monsters without a care, enjoying the thrill of the hunt, then drowning in liquor to hide the pain his joy brought him. He lived for his brother, and his brother lived to hunt. 

Sam was unhinged, insane, unable to stop the hunt for even a moment, driven by his need to corrupt everything Loki had touched, including himself. He hunted and killed and destroyed, not caring whether his victims were true monsters or not. 

Bobby Singer watched over the boys, sending a new hunt their way sometimes before they’d finished up with the last, knowing they needed to always keep moving. That  _ Sam  _ needed to always keep moving. Him and Dean were so glad to have him back, that sometimes they forgot who he had been, what he had done. 

Sam had been a monster, a trickster, a sadistic being who justified their actions with the pretence of it being justice. That sadistic streak shone through still at times, the imagination behind his old hobby appearing from time to time. 

Sam was still a monster, only this time a different breed. He was a monster who hunted monsters. But despite all he did, all he killed, he was never satisfied, for one monster still remained, still haunted his dreams and consumed his thoughts. He wouldn’t ever be able to stop until Loki was dead, and he’d tear the world apart to do it.

 

Xxx

Gabriel watched as Sam fell, watched him become consumed by the need to ruin all Gabriel had touched. The reflexes were honed into weapons, the knowledge twisted for his own purpose, himself becoming a man whom Gabriel would go as far as to kill himself. 

But still Gabriel did nothing, unable to even consider harming a hair on the man’s head; despite what Sam felt, Gabriel still loved him with all his heart, and he would love him until the day he died. 

He was beginning to hope that day would be soon.

 

Xxx

 

“Father,” Meg said, announcing her arrival in the throne room. “The WInchester boy, he’s surfaced.” 

“What?” Azazel asked, ordering all other demons to leave so that he could hear the latest and greatest news. 

His precious future boy king had disappeared many years ago, believed to be dead but not, his soul in heaven nor hell. He wasn’t dead, only gone, and now he was back. 

“He’s back with his brother. They’re hunting,” Meg explained. 

Azazel leant back in his throne, thinking on what to do next. “Follow him,” he said at last. “I want to know everything, most importantly what he’s been doing these past years, and who’s been hiding him. I want to know everything.”

“And the others?” 

“Kill them. We have no use of them anymore.” 

All over the country, every demon blooded child died, each of them taking their own lives. Their parents, friends, lovers, said it was _as if_ they were something possessed. Bobby Singer said they  _ were  _ possessed, and he began to put together a pattern. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Let's play a game. It's called 'who can convince me to make the ending happy?' If you win, happy ending, If you lose, it's my ending, which could go either way.   
> Good luck, and let the games begin...


	10. Pushing Pawns Into Place

“Sam, maybe we should take a break,” Dean suggested with a wince, preparing to vacate the latest dump someone had the audacity to call a motel room. 

“Break from what?” Sam asked, already walking out the door with his bag, ready to start a new hunt; he had four to pick from, and a toss of a few coins would decide which one he told Dean about first.

“This. Hunting. Maybe we should head back to Bobby’s for a bit and just… take some time off.” There had been a time that Dean would never had suggested such a thing, but then there had been a time that Sam was entirely human, too. 

“People are dying, Dean, and Loki’s still out there,” Sam growled, proceeding to storm out the room. 

“Exactly Sam. He’s  _ still  _ out there, so we need to research, and take some time for ourselves. It’s been what, a year? What have we got on the guy, and I mean leads here.” He had to specify that last part, because the lore Sam had pulled up was extensive, to say the least; from the firsthand experiences, to every scrap in a book of Norse mythology, Sam knew it through and through. 

It was terrifying for Dean to see his brother consumed by what had killed his father. 

“Dean, I have to,” Sam said, breathing deeply to try and stay calm. “I have to find him, and I can’t just sit around doing nothing until then!”   
“I’m not saying do nothing!” Dean cried, raising his hands. “I just mean that maybe Bobby has something we haven’t seen yet, or he could have found us a new hunt that sounds like Loki. Besides, you’re no good to anyone if you can’t see straight enough to aim a gun.” But then Sam didn’t care about that, did he? All he really wanted was to kill every son of a bitch Loki had ever taught him about. Saving people was just a byproduct. 

“You know what?” Sam growled, unable to believe what he was hearing. “Fuck you. I;ll go take that hunt, you can run off to Bobby’s and recover, leave the people to die and Loki to roam free.” 

“Sam-” Dean called, running after Sam as he stalked towards a different car- a white ford that had definitely seen some better days. “Sam that’s not what I mean, and you know it.” 

A harsh laugh escaped Sam’s lips. “You don’t want me to stop hunting because I scare you? Because you think I’m just a monster who hunts monsters?” At Dean’s stunned expression Sam rolled his eyes. “I’m not blind; I see how you look at me.”

It was Dean’s turn to take a deep breath. “I just want to make sure you’re ok.” 

“Sure.” Sam turned his back on his brother, broke the car’s window, unlocked it, and climbed in.

“You can’t hunt alone,” Dean hissed, bending low so to see his giant of a brother hotwire the car.

“Call me when you’re done ‘recovering’,” was all Sam cared to reply, before driving off and leaving Dean behind. 

 

Xxx

 

“Bobby, you’d better have some good news for me,” Dean groaned into the phone, running a hand down his face. 

“What’s wrong now, boy?” Bobby’s gruff voice replied. 

“Sam took off, went to hunt by himself.”   
“Is he mad?” Bobby barked, forcing Dean to lift the phone away from his ear for a moment. “Do yeh know where he’s gone?” 

“No,” Dean admitted. “He has his cell, though, so I can track him when he stops.” 

Bobby sighed. “You still in Missourri?” 

“Yeah, yeah,” Dean absently replied. 

“Ok, well head on up to me. I’ve got something you might like, will be enough even to get Sam to come back.” Even Bobby knew that Sam just needed a hunt to come running, now. 

“What is it?” Dean asked, climbing into the Impala and gunning the engine. 

“Demons. Lotta them.”

 

Xxx

 

Sam drove from Mountain Grove, Missouri, to Chicago in less than five hours and breaking over a dozen road laws. But there was demonic activity in Chicago, and demons were the best source of information, even if Dean didn’t approve of his… methods. 

But after a night’s sleep and a day’s surveillance and research, he still had no lead as to where this demon was. Which meant it was time for a drink. 

There was a bar nearby the shithole he currently was inhabiting, one with loud music and crap beer, but a bar all the same. He spent an hour on whiskey, watching the patrons, before a girl with short blonde hair and a sassy demeanour slipped into the seat beside him. 

“Hey handsome,” she crooned, a hand making it’s way across Sam’s shoulder. “I hear you’re looking for me,” she said once she had Sam’s attention, eyes filling out to entirely black. 

Sam barely flinched. “What do you want?” If this demon wanted to kill him, they’d have done it already, which meant it wanted to talk.  

“Not even gonna ask my name? You wound me.” 

“You’re a demon, I don’t care.” 

“The name’s Meg, and I hear you’re looking for Loki.” She’d been shadowing him and his brother for weeks, finding out what exactly made Sam Winchester tick, the answer being the trickster himself. And now she had him. 

“Maybe. What’s it to you?” He turned to face her completely, nonchalantly leaning his weight on the bar. 

“I want to help.” Sam raised an eyebrow, she ground her teeth. “There’s a rumour he’s not what he says, something much more than a trickster.” 

“I’d gathered that much,” Sam retorted; in all his research, nothing even akin to a trickster or god had the ability to completely change someone’s species. Well, except for the capital G God himself, but he didn’t exist. 

“Well do you know what he is? Do you know how to kill him?” Now  _ that  _ was something Sam hadn’t quite grasped yet. 

“I don’t work with demons,” Sam grunted. 

“Well when you do, just ask around for me.” She patted his shoulder and waltzed off, leaving the first seed in Sam’s mind. 

 

Xxx

 

“So you’re telling me,” Dean said, pinching the bridge of his nose, “that about forty people killed themselves on the same day, all of them born the same year within a few months of each other, ten years after demonic activity in their town? Is that all?”   
“Some of their mothers died in nursery fires he day of their six month birthday,” Bobby added, softening his tone slightly. 

“Sam,” Dean breathed, panic rising in his chest. 

“I checked everythin’. He’s the only one of ‘em left.” The grizzly hunter threw a thick file down on the table with a heavy thump. “I’ll bet you everythin’ that they have a plan for ‘im.” 

“No shit.” He blinked a few times, then a few more, but his phone rang before he could think any further. 

“Dean?” Sam asked down the line. 

“Sam, are you ok?”   
“Yeah, yeah fine. Just finished up the hunt, so heading back to Bobby’s. You got a hunt for us yet?” 

Dean thought for a moment, before deciding on “No, nothing here.” He was going to regret that, he was sure of it. 

“Well I’ve got one in California, so I’ll swing by and grab you on the way through. That is, if you’re done recovering.” 

“I’ll see you when you get here, bitch.” With that, he ended the call, not even waiting to hear Sam’s reply. 

“You didn’t tell ‘im,” Bobby remarked. 

“And I won’t until we know exactly what’s going on here, understood?” 

“Sure, because that will end well,” Bobby remarked, pulling out two more beers. 


	11. The Colt

Sam woke to the sound of his phone going off, having finally decided that he needed at least three hours before driving back to Sioux Falls. One text from an unknown number lit up the screen. 

_ When you need me, I have the Colt _

 

  * __Meg x__



 

He didn’t know what the Colt was, nor why it was important, and he had no desire to show the demon even the slightest hint of interest in what she was selling. With that, he put the phone down, got dressed, checked out, and began the drive back to his brother.

He arrived just before midday, walking in to find both Dean and Bobby already waiting for him. 

“Coffee in the pot,” was all Bobby said in greeting. 

“Thanks,” Sam replied, going over to pour himself a cup then lean against the countertop, facing the two men sat at the table. “So get this; Fresno’s showing signs of having a vamp nest. No deaths yet, but six people are in hospital with blood loss and bite marks on their necks. I say we set off in a few hours.”    
“Or we could, you know, put another hunter on it?” Dean offered. “One that’s already that side of the country?” 

“I know a guy already over there. Vamp specialist, too,” Bobby remarked, thinking about Gordon Walker. 

Sam narrowed his eyes at the pair. “Fine. Got anything else then, Bobby?”

“Nothin’,” Bobby lied, going over to his desk. “I’ll let yeh know when I find somethin’, though.” 

Sam only nodded, going out to grab his duffle, then returning inside. “I’m going to grab a few,” he declared, before marching on upstairs. He didn’t sleep, though, instead opening his laptop, finding three hunts almost immediately and proving Bobby’s lie. He didn’t go to confront the men, but instead opened a new tab, preparing for another few hours of research into species change, and what Loki might be. 

A few hours became a day, a day to two, and two to a week. Sam sat with his laptop, finding nothing but a nagging thought; should he take that demon up on her offer? All the while, Dean and Bobby tried to find out exactly what was going on, and why Sam was the only one of these kids left alive. 

“Dean,” Bobby said, joining his surrogate son in the kitchen, “I’ve got it.” Dean looked up from his father’s journal to find Bobby shoving an ancient book under his nose. “Princes of Hell have yellow eyes.” It had taken a lot of digging, and chasing lead after lead through Sioux Falls’ library, and nearly every library in the vicinity, before he found even the barest reference. But it had been there, and that made the hunt worth it. 

“What are the princes?” Dean asked, his father having never made a reference to them. 

“Four demons supposedly made by the devil himself. Go by Ramiel, Azazel, Asmodeus, and Dagon. Azazel is the only one with any connection to children. I’d bet my hat that he’s the one we’re after.” 

Dean slumped back, a weight he hadn’t known he’d been carrying suddenly removed from his shoulders; after all this time, he finally had a name. 

“Ok. Is there any mention of how to kill a prince?” Dean asked, riffling through John’s journal once more, skipping to any mention of yellow eyes. “Dad talked about the Colt a lot, but we never found it. I don’t know of anything else.” 

“I can make a few calls, see if anyone knows anythin’,” Bobby grunted. “If anything can kill that demon, it’ll be the gun that can kill anythin’.” 

Sam listened in, and he grinned. It was time to summon a demon.

 

Xxx

 

“I thought I warned you not to do this,” Death remarked, appearing behind Gabriel as the archangel went about handing out fatal punishment after fatal punishment. 

“Sam hates me,” Gabe replied, voice completely level. 

“That’s no excuse.”   
“Sam hates me,” he repeated, “and he wants to kill me. It’s… I can feel our bond trying to mend itself, but he’s rejecting it from his side. It won’t ever mend. Not now.”  _ And it will always hurt me more than anything else in this world or the next,  _ Gabriel silently thought, envious of the humans that couldn’t feel the bond; they didn’t have the ability to feel more than heartbreak when they were broken. 

“Love is no excuse for what you’re doing.” 

“I know, and I don’t want to be excused.” Gabriel turned to face Death completely. “I want you to reap me. Here and now. I don’t want to live any longer.”   
“Why not kill yourself, save me half the job?” Death asked. 

Gabriel let out a tired huff of breath. “I’m a coward, ok? I tried many times, but I  _ can’t.  _ I still think that maybe, just  _ maybe,  _ Sam still loves me somewhere, that he’ll come back, and that tiny piece of  _ stupid  _ hope is terrifying enough that I’m scared to die. Ok? So just kill me, because we all know that Sam’s never going to come back.” 

“If you’re so sure he hates you that much, why not get him to kill you?” Death couldn’t kill Gabriel himself, not after all this time, not after all these years they’d existed together.

“DId you forget that I’m a coward?” Gabe laughed; a harsh, humourless sound escaping his lips. “I can’t face him, not like he is.” 

“You want the easy way out,” Death summarised. 

“Yeah, you could say that.”

“No.” Death didn’t often get visibly angry, but it was one of those rare occasions. “You are an archangel, the only one left that’s uncorrupted. You don’t get the easy way out, and you never will. If you want to die, do it yourself or go face the one person who will do it for you.” Humans feared an angel’s wrath, angels feared an archangel’s. But Archangels? They feared Death’s.

“You can’t call me uncorrupted,” Gabriel mopped at last. “I’m practically a pagan.”

“A pagan that delivers justice to those who deserve it. Whatever you call yourself, you’re still the same being you always were. You don’t get the easy way out.” With that, he left, and Gabriel stopped his tricks.

Either live with a ruined bond, something that was carving him in two with every second it existed, or die.  To die, he’d either kill himself, or go to Sam. 

The former path to death was easier, one he could do anytime, but that small seed of hope still existed, still made him question whether Sam would still love him, change his mind, or whether he truly was lost. 

Hope was his father’s greatest gift, but his cruelest creation, one that left Gabriel with only one option: It was time to face Sam. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ok, yes, I know I'm a week late, but in my defence I spent last weekend in a tent! Not fun, and I'd compare it to Hell, except I think that's an insult to Hell.   
> Anyway, shit chapter sorry, but my caffinated mind has no writing ability right now. Sorry!


	12. Broken eyes

Sam stood in a barn, forcing away each shred of doubt plaguing his mind. Every thought brought forward a whisper of  _ is this right? Is this too much?  _ Every time, he forced himself to continue. 

At last, the final line was drawn, the last ingredient present, and a single match was dropped. Meg stood in the centre of a devil’s trap, wearing the same meatsuit as before, a smug smirk splitting her face in two. 

“Well well,” she drawled, coming right up to the trap’s edge. “I’d thought you’d forgotten about me.”

“I want the Colt,” Sam replied. 

“Straight to the point. I like it,” Meg replied with a wink. 

“It can kill anything, correct?” Sam knew the answer, but he also wanted to know how much the demon would lie. 

“Kill it dead,” Meg confirmed, eyes undressing Sam where he stood. Sam tried not to shiver beneath her gaze. 

“Where is it?”   
“Surely you didn’t expect it that easily, did you? You’re making a deal with a demon, Sammy boy, so prepare to give something in return.”   
“Don’t call me that,” Sam bit back, the reply automatic. 

“Oh, sorry, I forgot. It’s just your brother and your lover who can call you that, isn’t it.” 

Sam was in the trap in an instant, a hand around her throat, the other holding a gun to her temple. “Don’t you dare,” he snarled, acting on instinct at the reference to  _ him.  _

Meg only laughed. “You really did lose it, didn’t you? Tell me, what did that pagan do yo you to make you like this? Did he break your heart?” 

Sam pushed her away in disgust, that being the only other alternative to killing her. “What do you want for the Colt?” 

Meg sighed, their fun over. “Corrupt yourself,” she replied, rolling her eyes. “I give you the gun, you take a good old fashioned swig of demon blood, and you can beon your merry way to murder. No strings attached.”

“Drink demon blood?” Sam asked in disgust, never having thought he’d consider swooping so low, and yet there he was. 

“And the Colt is yours. Say no and you’ll never see it, and there’s no guarantee there’s something else to kill that monster, is there?” Meg smirked once again, knowing she had Sam in a trap. 

“I just have to drink your blood?” He asked, closing his eyes as if to hide from reality. 

“Just one drink,” Meg replied, drawing a knife from her boot, slicing her wrist. “Do we have a deal?”

Sam didn’t reply, instead diving straight for her hand, taking one gulp then pushing her away, not even allowing himself to consider what he was doing, let alone taste the blood, before he swallowed it. 

“That’s not a drink,” Meg pouted. 

“I’m not a monster,” Sam growled. 

“You were once. Could argue you still are. Keep going. I’ll tell you when.”   
Sam gulped, watching the blood run down her porcelain skin, feeling it drip down his chin. He didn’t have a choice, did he? He had to do this, once and for all. He had to stop this soul-destroying feeling eating him up from the inside, had to erase Loki from existence once and for all, so he could finally be free. 

So he drank. 

He tasted it this time. That was a mistake; it was pure bliss, lightning coursing through his veins as he gulped down the foul substance. He felt  _ powerful,  _ in a way he hadn’t felt since Loki had returned him to his human state. It was… exhilarating. 

It was dirty. 

“That’s enough,” he finally gasped, stumbling away from Meg. 

“I guess,” the demon replied, not bothering to hide her disappointment. “Well, a deal’s a deal. One gun coming up.”She tossed him the Colt, making it appear out of thin air, a case of bullets following. “Do a girl a favour and set her free?” 

Sam broke the trap, and Meg was gone.

A part of him wished she’d stayed. 

 

Xxx

 

“I have the Colt,” Sam declared, walking into Bobby’s home. 

“You have the  _ what _ ?” Dean exclaimed, thundering downstairs to see if Sam told the truth or not. 

“The Colt. I’m going after Loki.” 

“Sam, how did you get that?” Bobby asked, staring at the ancient gun in Sam’s hand. 

Sam deliberated for a moment, ultimately deciding not to tell the men the truth. “Loki hid it away. I just… went and collected it.” 

Neither man looked pleased, but nor did they question his story.

“Well I’ll be damned,” Bobby finally said. “Give it ‘ere, boy. Let me see it.”

“I’m going after Loki,” Sam finally repeated. “You can have it once I’m done.”   
“Sam,” Dean began, coming forward. “You can’t just… this is  _ Loki  _ you’re talking about. You need to plan this.” 

“I have,” Sam replied. 

Indeed, he had put together what he believed to be a foolproof plan. 

He had tracked Loki for months, always coming up with nothing. He’d gone for information from everything and anything supernatural, listening out for any news on the Pagan, still coming up with nothing. 

Except bastards still died, and just desserts were delivered, so Loki was definitely still active. 

It had taken some time, but eventually Sam had realised that there was one way to ensure Loki would come to him; pray. 

Not that  _ anyone  _ could pray, though. No, it had to be Sam. 

Sam wasn’t stupid; he may not like it one bit, but he knew Loki, and he knew that the god hadn’t truly faked what he’d felt for Sam. He couldn’t tell you how he knew, just that he did. And because of that, he knew that Loki would come if Sam prayed for him.

He told the two men exactly that, as well as what they needed to trap the god  _ and  _ render him powerless.

“I don’t like it,” Bobby remarked. 

“You don’t have to, you just have to do it,” Sam replied. 

“I take it you want to go now?” Dean asked, Sam not being one to waste time, not when he was still not used to his mortality, still not used to the feeling of his life running away from him with each beat of his heart. He wouldn’t waste his time when his time was limited. 

“Of course,” Sam replied, as if the answer were obvious. 

“Give us an hour,” Bobby huffed, returning to his desk. Sam would give him that much, at least. 

One hour, and Loki would die. 

 

Xxx

 

Gabriel was many things, and a coward most of all. He waited and waited, putting off going to Sam for as long as possible, prolonging his death, dreading salvation, the cost too high for him to consider. 

Eventually, he couldn’t. 

_ Loki,  _ Sam prayed, his voice shining through as a beacon of hope.  _ Loki, come please. Come to me.  _ An address followed, and Gabriel was gone without a moment’s hesitation. 

Gabriel was many things, including a fool. 

He’d acted without thought, desperate for Sam, only realising his mistake when he landed inside a binding circle, one that was specifically designed for him. The warding on the barn’s walls bound his trickster magic, and he was impressed as he took in the sigils for other ‘monsters’ too; Sam had figured out he wasn’t just a trickster then. 

_ Sam.  _

The boy stood at the edge of the trap, Bobby and Dean behind him, but Gabriel didn’t care for them. 

_ Sam.  _

He was so different. His hair had grown, his skin pale from lack of sleep and nutrition, eyes encircled with shadow just to prove that point. His eyes. No longer did they hold that spark, that mischievous Gabriel had come to know and love. These eyes were dead, lifeless. They belonged to a man with nothing left, one who had seen empires fall to ruin, who had been destroyed in the collapse. They showed Gabriel exactly what he’d done to the gorgeous man. 

ANd there was more. 

Beneath the barrier of skin and bone, Sam’s soul was dark with grief. Once blinding and beautiful, the man’s soul was reduced to but a shadow of its former glory, twisted by his rage and sorrow, scarred by what he’d done, blackened by…

_ No. No!  _ He couldn’t have. Gabriel wouldn’t believe it. 

But it was the truth. 

Sam’s soul had held a taint when he was a baby, one Gabriel had burned out of him, but there it was. Demon blood coursed through the man’s veins, barely there yet all too present. And it was willfully taken, too; it had fused with his soul in places, meaning that Sam had accepted it as a piece of himself. It was sickening. 

And it was all Gabriel’s fault. 

He didn’t care, though, because this was  _ Sam.  _ His Sam. The man he would love to the end of time and back, who could burn the world without Gabriel losing faith in him. 

This was Sam, and yet, in that moment, Gabriel could have mistaken him for Lucifer. 

All of this, though, took place between one second and the next, the humans unable to comprehend the speed of an archangel’s thoughts. 

“Hello, Loki,” Sam said by way of greeting, a gun pointed to Gabriel’s head. Not Lo, but Loki. And not a normal gun, but the Colt. 

Gabriel had flown to Sam without a moment’s hesitation, needing to see his lover once again, no matter what the outcome. He’d welcomed death, especially if it’d meant he could see Sam again. 

He realised now that he’d been wrong. 

This was worse. Seeing Sam, destroyed by his actions, intending to kill him, was not something Gabriel ever wished to see again. Never.

“Sam,” Gabriel replied, unable to say more than the man’s name, unable to form the words to show him what was in his heart. He wanted to scream until all of Heaven heard him, scream in apology, cry for forgiveness, beg for Sam to heal. 

He couldn’t, though, so he only said his name. 

“You came,” Sam said, cold and indifferent, refusing to show just how broken he was at the sight of the other. 

This was the being that had stolen him, lied to him, made him into someone he was not. This being had destroyed the life he was meant to have, taken the only family he’d ever known, been prepared to make him hate those who’d sworn to love and protect him. This was the being who’d _ ruined  _ him.

Loki had taken everything from him. 

“I’ll always come for you, Sam,” Gabriel replied, not even bothering to force the tears away. Let the other two see; he had nothing left. 

“Why?” Sam asked, practically spitting the word. But still he didn’t shoot. 

“Why d’ya think, ya moose?” Gabriel replied, allowing some of his usual snark to return. “I love you.”

“No,” Sam growled, tightening his hold on the gun, nostrils flaring in his rage. “No you’re a liar and a thief. You never loved me.” 

“Sam,” Gabriel whispered, glad that the last thing he would ever see were those eyes, no matter how cold they were. At least they were Sam’s. 

Sam’s hand shook, his whole body shaking as nameless emotions overtook him. 

This was it, the end of it all. One squeeze of the trigger and it was all over. Loki would be dead, his tormentor finally gone, and he’d be free. Forget the demons, forget the hunting. One shot, and he was done. 

“It’s ok,” Gabriel whispered, nodding as he picked up on Sam’s thoughts. “It’s ok.” Death had been right; Gabriel didn’t deserve an easy way out, not after everything he’d done to break the man, not after all he’d put him through. 

Sam deserved to pull the trigger, even if it wouldn’t kill him. Or… 

Gabriel didn’t snap his fingers, instead just willing the bullet in the chambre to change, to become slightly more archangel-killing. A miniature archangel blade, if you will, to kill him once and for all. 

Sam deserved that much. 

Sam was ready. He was ready to end it, to never have to think of the sorrow the trickster brought to him, never wake from nightmares born of that monster’s face, never have to remember how he’d been taken advantage of by the short being in front of him. 

Yet… yet those were the eyes that had lit up in joy whenever Sam set off a prank. Those were the fingers that carded through Sam’s hair whenever he’d had a nightmare, calmed him when he was stressed. Those were the lips that could take him apart and put him back together, that would always know the right thing to say to put him on cloud nine. 

He hated Loki with every fibre of his being. He loved him with all his heart. 

“Do it, Sammy, please,” Gabriel begged, needing it to be over, needing to free himself on the agony that was living with the knowledge of what he’d done. 

Sam wavered, his hand shaking, finger itching to tighten, to deliver that final blow. He hated Loki, truly hated him, had devoted his new life to destroying every piece of him that had belonged to the monster. And yet, at the end of it all, he couldn’t do it. 

He’d asked to be a trickster, Loki did it. He asked for fun, Loki provided it. He asked to be human, Loki made it happen. Whatever he wanted or needed, Lo had made sure he got it. 

He asked for the truth, and Loki had always delivered. 

_ I love you.  _ Lo’s mantra. 

No matter what had happened, what lies he’d been told, Sam had loved, and thought he’d tried to hide from it, it seemed he hadn’t stopped. 

“Do it,” Gabriel begged, one final time. 

Sam stared right into those tear-filled eyes, and lowered the gun. “No.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We're nearly there!!! Only two or so more chapters left!  
> Place your bets: happy ending or sad?


	13. Corrupting the pure

“No?” They all spoke together, each meaning something different to the other. 

To Dean, it was ‘No? You don’t want to kill him? Dude! We just… you’ve been hunting him for ages!’

To Bobby, it was more of a ‘No? Thank God.’

To Gabriel, though, it was the most important ‘No’ he’d ever heard. It was a word that had too many meanings. It meant Sam loved him, that he wanted him back, that their love had survived all of this, that his mate wanted him forever. It meant Sam hated him, that he would condemn him to live knowing he was forever alone, that he wanted to torture him for his whole existence.

“No,” Sam repeated, tremors running through his entire body, tears soaking his cheeks, but he didn’t change his mind. “No I- I can’t. I can’t.”   
“Sam, please,” Gabriel begged, his expression matching his ex-lover’s. 

Did Sam not feel what he felt? Did he not know just how much it hurt to be apart? Did he not find himself unable to think of anything but the other, yet burn at every thought of them? 

The answer was yes. At the end of the day, all Sam could think of was Loki, and every time he thought of the god he  _ burned  _ like he’d never before. But every ounce of pain was rage to him, never able to move past the emotion eating him from within.

But then, at the end of it all, he loved him. He thought. 

“Why?” He asked at last, needing to know at least that. “Why did you do it? Do any of it?” The one thing he’d never asked. The one thing he had to know. 

“You were so scared. So small,” Gabriel recalled, another piece of his heart cracking off. “There was a werewolf, and he- he just- he  _ raped  _ you Sam! And you were- there was blood everywhere, and you’d prayed to everyone for help. You prayed for me, personally, and I came, and I- I couldn’t leave you there, not when your father had left you all alone, no one to care for you, or protect you from the monster, and I couldn’t leave you. I  _ couldn’t.  _

“You were so broken by it all that I knew I couldn’t let you remember what had happened, but I couldn’t take you without explanation. You would never have left! And your father was so neglectful anyway that I- Sam, I wasn’t in a good place, but I can’t excuse what I did. And I… it was all there, so I just changed your memory slightly, made sure you’d leave an abusive father to come with me, where you’d be safe. 

“I didn’t- I didn’t realise how much you cared. I thought you must’ve hated John, because of what he’d put you through, but you did love him in your own way, and I knew that I wouldn’t be able to get you away from him. I had to keep you  _ safe!  _ I had to get you away! And I… It was true, when I told you I couldn’t keep you safe if you weren’t a trickster, because I couldn’t keep you with me if you weren’t like me, so I got your permission to make you a trickster, and I erased your memory. You- you didn’t have to remember how fucked up your childhood had been, or what had happened to you. I could give you the childhood you need. Please, Sam. I know it wasn’t built on the truth but… but I didn’t lie about anything else. I promise. I  _ promise. _ ”

No one had interrupted him, no one spoke. The silence hung in the air, everything in the balance. 

“Why did you leave?” That was the one thing he hadn’t explained.

“I didn’t want to; when I was stabbed, a part of me died. That was the part tied to you, and it broke our bond. By the time I woke up, you were gone and I thought you were dead; I couldn’t sense you anywhere.”

From behind, Bobby beamed with pride, glad his wards were strong enough to keep Loki from sensing Sam. 

“I went and… self-destructed for some time, but an old friend reminded me you weren’t dead, and I came running. By then… by then it was too late, and you’d started to remember. I couldn’t force you to come back, so I left to let you have the life you should’ve.” 

He’d poured his heart out, and he had nothing left to give. It was all up to Sam. 

“You love me?” Sam asked, the answer obvious, but he needed to hear it. 

“More than anything.” 

“And you only lied to protect me?” He betrayed nothing, his face a blank mask. 

“I kept them to a minimum, and it was only when I had no choice.” A feeble excuse, but it was all he had left. 

“What are you?” Sam asked outright, no room for wiggling, for tricks, for excuses. 

“Sam-” Gabriel choked. He hadn’t said the words in years, hadn’t been himself since the Fall. 

“If this is going to work, you have to tell me what you really are.” It was his one condition. 

_ If this is going to work.  _ If. There was an if. There was a chance. “My name is Gabriel, and I am an archangel.” No tricks. No pazaz. He resigned himself to the truth, unable to do anything as Sam’s mask slipped, as he saw the horror he couldn’t fail to hide. 

He’d been running for so long it was second nature. He’d vowed not to run, to stay with Sam, to take the hard way out and get what he deserved. One look at Sam’s face, at the gun he wouldn’t raise, and Gabriel knew he was a fool for ever thinking he could change. 

Sam wouldn’t shoot him, and yet still there was horror in his eyes. 

Still no one spoke. Still the silence weighed down on them. Sam fell apart before his eyes, but always his emotion returned to the same disgust. That was enough for Gabriel. 

“If you need me, just pray,” he said at last, unwilling to endure this agony for another second. 

Gabriel snapped, and he was gone. 

 

Xxx

 

Sam had been willing to forgive him, had practically done so the moment he set eyes on the being. One look into those golden orbs and he;d remembered exactly why he’d fallen in love in the first place. 

That source of hatred within him knew only love, the poison driven out by relief in seeing Lo  _ alive  _ and  _ in person.  _ He didn’t know, but it was the ruined bond that had fuelled his hatred, one that sparked in joy upon sensing its other half. He didn’t know, though. 

He’d been willing to forgive, had looked forward to holding Lo again, and yet… 

And yet Lo was an archangel. In fact, he was the most famous archangel, one Sam had prayed to as a child. 

_ Explains how he found me,  _ Sam thought, knowing perfectly well he’d never have prayed to Loki.  _ He was an archangel, and he took in the ruined kid.  _

He was disgusted, absolutely disgusted, and he couldn’t find it. Except he was disgusted with himself, as opposed to with Gabriel. 

_ Gabriel  _ had tried to save him, in his own way.  _ Gabriel  _ had given up everything to protect a child.  _ Gabriel  _ had come clean when it mattered most, and was willing to die for him to be happy. 

Sam… he’d left before allowing for an explanation, venomous towards the god from that first day in the panic room.  _ He’d  _ been the one to hunt Gabriel across the world, desperate to kill him.  _ He’d  _ been the one that attempted to corrupt everything about the archangel. 

He’d tried to destroy one of the most holy, pure beings in existence. 

He was a monster, and he hated himself for it. 

So when Gabriel left, he put up no fight, because if an archangel deemed him too ruined to keep as company, Sam deserved it. In fact, he deserved much worse. 

Dean and Bobby said nothing, their place not being one to interfere. They watched each of the men fall apart, watched Gabriel leave, watched Sam silently leave and not return. 

They just let Sam leave, giving him the time he needed to understand. 

 

Xxx

 

Sam found a bar very quickly, and the bottom of a bottle even faster. He didn’t care what he drank, so long as he ended up drunk; he didn’t want to feel, didn’t want to relive that last hour, in which he’d been so close to happiness only to lose it. 

He wasn’t worthy of Gabriel. He never would be. 

“Sam,” Meg said, taking a seat beside him. Sam was too far gone to tell her to leave. “Is Loki dead?” 

“Dead?” He asked, slurring his words almost to inaudibility. “He left. He doesn’’ wan’ me.” I’m all alone.”

“It’s ok, I want you,” Meg purred, pouring the man another drink from her own personal stash. No one saw the red tint. “Why don’t we go somewhere else, and I’ll take care of you.” 

Sam knew not who he was with, really. All he knew was that they were warm, nice, and gave him a drink. That was enough for him; he deserved nothing better. 

He’d tried to corrupt everything about the most holy being on the planet. He deserved it all back tenfold. 

“Le’s go,” he said, stumbling from the bar and disappearing with the demon. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> PLEEEEEAAAASSSSEEEE someone tell me what to write!!!! Allow me to put off my own work for longer! Give me prompts!!!!!
> 
> (Maybe send them on Tumblr? To hermajesty-evie ?)


	14. He deserved it

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's a short one, sorry, because you guys need this and I need to recover from a writing fest.   
> In other news, guess who just finished the second edit of her own original work? That's right, it was me. I'm over the moon right now, but just... can't... words... ugh!

Gabriel would not return until Sam prayed. He would not interfere, would not force himself into Sam’s life, no matter what. That had been his mistake. 

 

Xxx

 

It had been two weeks, and Sam had not called once. Dean had tried, night and day, to get ahold of his brother, and each time he failed. He tried tracking the cell, but he eventually realised Sam had ditched it. 

He’d disappeared completely, and he had no clue how to find him. 

 

Xxx

 

Sam had spent two weeks too high to think, let alone feel. Meg kept him full of demon blood, whether that be hers or some other demon she’d dragged in. One stood out over all the rest - Ruby. That demon knew what she was doing, and she gave him exactly what he needed; with her, he never had a moment to think. Either he was too doped up, or too blissed out from sex. 

He didn’t think of Gabriel once, and he never wanted to again. He didn’t need the reminder that he was corrupted. Not at all. He wouldn’t drag an  _ archangel  _ down with him. 

In his brief moments of clarity, Sam had realised three things. One, he was most certainly going to hell for what he’d done. Two, he was in love with an archangel. Three, he deserved to become a monster for his actions. 

Samuel Winchester, hunter extraordinaire, lover of the Pagan god Loki, trickster… he deserved none of it. He deserved to be hunted, hated, a monster. He deserved everything he did. 

He would never trouble  _ Gabriel  _ again, never force him to return to his mistake. He could give the archangel that. 

 

Xxx

 

Two weeks. Three. 

A month. Sam couldn’t go a day without the blood. Dean had stopped calling, instead chasing hunt after hunt, tracking down any information the hunting and monster community might have of Sam. Gabriel returned to his old ways, but had moved on from America. 

Two months. Sam’s power was but another example of how far he’d fallen, of what a monster he was. He deserved it, all of it, all the pain he put himself through. The Dean Winchester Bobby restored had gone, disappeared beneath a desperation to find his brother once again. Gabriel listened every second for Sam’s prayer. He still stayed away. 

Six. Sam was lost. Dean too. Gabriel stopped listening. 

A year. 

It had been too easy to descend to hell, to throw himself to the torture. He’d knelt at their feet at first, taking their beatings and carving, craving every bit of it. Eventually, though, they stopped giving him the blood, and he lashed out. Any demon he came across died. He’d ravaged the halls of Hell, throwing piece after piece of himself away with each gulp of that sweet, sweet nectar. By the time he’d come to his senses, Sam Winchester was gone. 

“Come with me,” Azazel ordered, and that was that. 

Black eyes, power beyond compare, a crown soon to be his. Sixty years in Hell, and Sam had almost forgotten why he’d come in the first place. 

Almost. He would never forget that smile, that laugh, that smirk. Not the kindness, the power, the endergy. The archangel. 

Another demon, another drop in the ocean of power, and he lost himself for some time longer. He deserved it. 

 

Xxx

 

“You’ve come a long way, my boy,” Azazel said, his hand on Samuel’s shoulder. 

Sam smirked, power crackling through his veins. “I know.” 

“You have one last job, and the throne is yours. Have you met Lilith, yet?”

 

Xxx

 

“Bobby,” Dean said by way of greeting, his voice meeting Bobby’s tired ears on the other end of the phone. “I’ve found him. I found Sam.”   
“Don’ keep me hangin’ boy,” Bobby growled, the year not having been kind to him, to either of them. 

“He’s in Hell, been there at least six months, with the demons even longer. They say he’s to be their king.”   
Bobby didn’t need to ask who ‘they’ were, knowing perfectly well how Dean had gained his information. He didn’t judge the boy, though, knowing that it was no use. He would do the same in the boy’s position. 

He sighed. “Is there any way they’re lyin’?”   
“No, no way.” 

“Ok, ok,” Bobby mused, pacing about his study. “Come back here. If Sam’s a- if he’s one of them, we can summon him again.” He couldn’t call Sam a demon. He wasn’t one. Couldn’t be one. Not his boy. 

He knew he was wrong. 

Dean arrived the next morning with the dawn, Bobby already having prepared the spell, the trap, the bindings. All that was left was a match and some blood. 

“Do me the honours,” he said, and Dean summoned his brother for what he hoped would be the last time. 

 

Xxx

 

Sam was enough of a demon to be summoned, even to be contained as one. Being dragged from Hell to Earth wasn’t something he found pleasant, the ride not designed for smoothness. Better yet, he appeared in the last room he wanted to be in; Bobby’s panic room, right in the middle of a devil’s trap.

_ Bobby.  _ The older hunter stood before him, Dean just to his left.  _ Dean.  _

Sam was enough of a demon to be summoned, but he was still human in his heart. “No, no please, let me go back,” he begged, panic rising within, his heart attempting to escape his chest. “Please,  _ please,  _ let me go. Let me go back. I promise I’m not hurting anyone, please, just let me go. I deserve. I deserve it all. Just let me go back. Please.” 

The two hunters halted, shocked by what they saw. Sam was clearly demonic, yes, but they knew he wasn’t  _ that  _ good of an actor. No one, demon or human, could fake such emotional pain. 

They tried, they really did, to get Sam to talk to them, to make him open up. Instead, he fell to his knees, whispering that same litany over and over and over again. 

“Dean,” Bobby breathed at last, the two of them finally leaving a mad Sam downstairs, “we can’ leave ‘im like that.”

“Well what do you suggest, then?” Dean growled, the anger that had become his constant companion rearing up, forcing him to try and punch through a wall. Not his brightest idea. “He’s- he’s a- You heard him, Bobby. He thinks he deserves the torture they put him through! He’s- they made him a demon. A  _ demon!  _ That’s worse than a damned trickster!” 

“You think I don’t know that?” Bobby yelled back, spit flying into Dean’s face. “I don’ know what they put ‘im through, but I know that we will get nothing from him now. He may be a demon, but that is  _ not  _ a monster.”

“I never said he was!”   
“You didn’t have to.” 

Dean stormed off, his friend Jack Daniels soon in hand. Bobby watched him go, questioning when their life had become so messed up. Probably the day John Winchester chose hunting over his sons. 

“Damn you John,” he spat to the empty room. Sam’s pleas were still audible, slowly driving Bobby mad. 

There was one thing he’d promised not to do, promised to leave to Sam, whenever he chose to return. That boy had been ridden of every choice in his life, so Bobby would give him the only one he could. 

But here he was, taking it away, just like everybody else. 

“Gabriel, I don’t know if you can hear me, but it’s Bobby Singer. I need your help. It’s Sam.”


	15. How it happened

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yes, it's late, but I really didn't want to risk writing in a deluded state whilst practically on my death bed. Ok, some over exaggeration there, but I was really ill! Besides, you guys can't complain since this is an extra long chapter.

_ “Gabriel, I don’t know if you can hear me, but it’s Bobby Singer, I need your help.”  _

Gabriel had all but ignored the prayer until then, only registering it because they said his true name. In fact, Gabriel had planned on completely disregarding the prayer until he hard those last few words. 

_ “It’s Sam.” _

He hadn’t heard from the boy in a year, had heard absolutely zip about him. Of course, being on the other side of the universe would probably be a contributing factor. He’d left for a reason, intending to give Sam his space, to let him choose whether he wanted to be with him now that he knew almost everything. And when nothing came through, Gabriel decided to run, to fly as far as he could, and hole up for another seventy or eighty years, or at least until Sam died. That way, he wouldn’t have to live surrounded by his mistakes. 

But those words… 

“What happened?” Gabriel demanded, standing in Bobby Singer’s kitchen, barely a second after the hunter had finished speaking. 

Bobby only stared at the runaway archangel. He’d thought he’d feel relief, but the grizzly hunter now realised just how angry he was towards Gabriel; the man had dropped a bombshell and left. He’d just upped and gone, abandoning them all, abandoning  _ Sam,  _ after everything that had happened between them. 

But he had a boy to save. 

“Follow me,” he grunted, making his way towards the basement once more. 

Gabriel didn’t move. He could barely see, barely breathe; he could hear it, hear  _ Sam,  _ crying out for more. More pain, more taint, more destruction. His soul cried out for more, dependant on the pain. And yet… not a human soul. Not the brilliance Gabriel had come to love, but a broken echo of what it had been.

“It’s a trick, it has to be,” Gabriel whispered, a thunderstorm brewing outside. 

“I’m afraid not,” Bobby answered, almost unheard by the archangel. 

Gabriel barely paid the old man any attention as he flew downstairs, pushing his way into the panic room, but halting at the edge of the trap. 

“Sam,” he whispered, seeing every scar, every shadow, every piece of taint he’d taken in willingly.  _ Willingly.  _ Sam had done this to himself. “Why?” His voice cracked on the word. 

Sam, in turn, couldn’t stop staring at the blinding light of an archangel, at Gabriel. “No no no no no,” he murmured, shaking his head, never rising from his crouched position on the floor. “No, please, don’t come back. Go away.”  _ Stay, please. Please, I love you. I don’t deserve you. I ruined it all. I tried to kill you. I deserve to die, to rot in hell. Please let me go, let me finish this.  _

“Sam,” Gabriel knelt down, reaching through the trap to cup Sam’s cheek. He delved into the man’s thoughts, catching the surface thoughts.  _ No.  _ He went further, finding everything he could, trying to find out exactly what had happened to make Sam turn to this. 

He didn’t like what he found. 

 

Xxx

 

_ “I don’ deserve ‘im,” Sam slurred, practically falling into Meg as they stumbled towards her vessel’s apartment.  _

_ “No, you don’t,” Meg reaffirmed, wanting to push Sam further down those thoughts, down as far as Hell, even.  _

_ “I deserve- I deserve to rot. I tried to kill ‘im, kill an- an- an- him.” He knew enough that he shouldn’t say ‘archangel’. “I’m a monster.” _ _   
_ _ “No, no you aren’t,” Meg softly said, turning the drunk man to face her, “but you deserve to be one. You deserve to be the worst kind of monster.” _ _   
_ _ “Yeah,” Sam muttered, agreeing with her wholeheartedly. He’d tried to destroy everything he had of Gabriel’s before, kill as many of those ‘monsters’ as he could. But now… now he realised that he was the true monster. He’d killed innocent creatures, guilty creatures, humans, anything.  _

_ He was the monster, and he deserved to be one.  _

_ “I deserve to be a monster,” he repeated, practically out of his mind.  _

_ “I can make you one, if you’d like.” She didn’t push him, let him make the decision himself. She knew how to trap him.  _

_ “Yeah, yeah,” Sam mumbled, needing to corrupt himself.  _

_ He deserved it.  _

 

_ Xxx _

 

_ “More,” Sam gasped, throwing another demon’s body on the floor, every last drop of their blood flowing through his veins. Three weeks in, and all he needed was to keep drinking. That way, he could try to forget the god, to forget the  _ archangel,  _ and what he had done. But those eyes haunted him, asleep or awake. He couldn’t escape what he’d done, what he’d tried to do, no matter how high he got or how drunk he was.  _

_ Maybe that was his punishment; to forever live with the guilt.  _

_ It wasn’t enough. _

 

_ Xxx _

 

_ Meg came to him one night, when he was drowning in that Ruby’s blood. She offered him a better punishment, a more fitting one. Sam jumped at it, his self-destruction more addictive than the blood.  _

_ The more he ruined himself, the better he’d be, and maybe one day he could be forgiven.  _

_ Hell was, well, hell. And he craved more of it.  _

_ They started on the rack, but quickly moved to stringing him up in a throne room, beating him before hoards of demons. Sam knew not why, nor did he care. So long as it hurt, as he bled, as they continued what they’d promised to do… he deserved it.  _

 

_ Xxx _

 

_ He’d consumed so much blood, there was a permanent metallic taste in his mouth. The day they stopped feeding him, though… that was the day he snapped.  _

_ They always ensured he drained at least two demons a day, but they didn’t that one day, thrity years into his torture. No blood. Nothing. Not even a blade brought out in his sight, nor a demon in the same room. They simply… left him.  _

_ Then the withdrawal began.  _

_ He’d known he was addicted, and he hadn’t cared. But maybe he would have changed his mind about how to go about his plans… or maybe not.  _

_ At first, it was ok; just tremors, a chill, something he could handle. The telekinesis attempting to throw him around the room was uncomfortable, but his chains held him in place. It was when the hallucinations began, when a golden eyed archangel appeared before him, that Sam finally snapped.  _

_ “Hey Samalama,” Gabriel said, cupping Sam’s pale and sweaty face.  _

_ “Lo,” Sam croaked, his heart shattering all over again. “Lo, no. Please go. Please. You can’t be here.” _ _   
_ _ “But Sam,” Gabriel whispered, coming in close enough that they shared the same air, “you dragged me down here. You made me fall.” His eyes flicked to black, and Sam screamed.  _

_ On and on, and on and on. It was eight hours of Sam yanking at his chains, of trying to tear himself away from Gabriel, before something finally changed. That something was Sam breaking his fingers, hands, wrists, until he was finally able to escape the bonds.  _

_ He ran through the halls of hell, drinking down every demon he came across, killing them all once he’d had enough. THey stood no chance against him, not when they had orders not to kill him.  _

_ Enough blood later, and Sam’s bones had healed themselves. Another few litres, and Gabriel disappeared.  _

_ Those golden eyes never stopped haunting him, though.  _

_ “Make it stop, make it stop,” Sam pleaded, rocking back and forth in a corner of hell. “Please, just go away. Leave me alone.” _ _   
_ _ “I can make it hurt less, m’boy,” a slimy voice offered. Sam sensed the demon’s approach, their power practically immense compared to that of the other black eyed beasts. “Why don’t you just come with me.” _ _   
_ _ Sam went. He deserved whatever came his way. Especially now.  _

 

_ Xxx _

 

_ They never let him become a full demon, never let him truly be one of them. They never told him why, and he didn’t care. But fifty years into Hell, and Sam was as close as they’d let him come.  _

_ Always, though, those golden eyes remained. Always, they reminded him why he was in such a position, why he was still among what he was supposed to hunt. They kept him running, forever and ever, right into the demons’ awaiting arms.  _

_ He deserved it.  _

 

_ Xxx _

 

“Oh Sammy,” Gabriel cried, tears streaming down his face as he came back into his own head. 

He clutched the boy’s face, refusing to let go of him again. Never again. H wouldn’t leave Sam, not now, not ever. If this was what the boy thought… if that was how low his opinion of himself was… 

It was all Gabriel’s fault. He should have stayed, should have explained. 

He should have told Sam what he was sooner. He should have told him that demons were after him. He should have left him a trickster, should have never gone after Dean Winchester, never made Sam like him.

He should never have interfered with Sam. 

“Sam, please, look at me.” 

But then, why would Sam believe Gabriel to be anything other than an illusion? After all, to him, this was just another detox. This was the demons taking away the blood again, removing some of the taint. 

He needed it back. 

“What happened?” Dean asked, to which Gabriel very briefly summarised. The pair left very quickly, hoping to find some lore to tell them what to do next. 

They knew it was pointless. 

“Sam,” Gabriel tried again. 

“Not real,” Sam whispered, trying to pull away, his eyes tight shut. 

“Sam,” Gabriel pressed on, shutting his own eyes, letting his forehead rest against Sam’s. 

He tried everything. He tried to talk to the boy, to make him open his eyes, to make him do  _ something  _ other than pray for more destruction, but Sam did nothing. He just got worse. 

Of course, what had Gabriel expected to happen? That Sam would just open his eyes and be all fine again?   
The boy had gone to hell for sixty years! He’d taken everything willingly, because he thought himself to be the worst kind of monster. He thought he’d tainted Gabriel, that he was worse than a demon for trying to hunt an angel. 

Of course Gabriel couldn’t fix that with three seconds and a handhold. 

So he stayed there, in that panic room, whispering sweet declarations of love whilst Sam wept. He conjured up a comfy bed, some food, some drinks. He read to Sam, telling him stories of magical lands full of magic and adventure, just like how their lives had been so long ago. 

But then Sam began to shake, and sweat, and moan in agony. 

“Gabriel?” Dean asked, coming into the room at the first sign of distress. “What’s wrong with him?”   
“I don’t-” Gabriel began, but he very quickly realised. “The blood. It’s the demon blood. He’s detoxing.” 

No.  _ No!  _

“Do something!” Dean demanded, ignoring every survival instinct he had in order to yank the archangel up by his jacket. Gabriel let him. 

But then, what could Gabriel do? He had two options; hold Sam through it, keep him as comfortable as possible… or burn the blood right out. 

He could end it all, burn away every piece of demonic taint, make Sam as human as he’d been before. It would be a quick yet painful rewrite of his DNA, a bit of cell restructure, some purification. Not easy, no, but not impossible. 

And yet that was exactly how they’d started all this mess, wasn’t it? With Gabriel choosing to make Sam something else, without his consent. He was an angel, no matter how much he tried to hide it, and consent was massive to them. 

But could he really watch Sam suffer? Was that worth it?

On Gabriel’s end, it wasn’t. He just wanted Sam to be safe, to not have to be in pain any longer. Once that demonic taint started to dissipate, he could begin to take care of healing Sam’s mind. 

But then, to Sam, this would be huge. It would be yet another violation of his very being, something he would absolutely despise. 

“No,” Gabriel answered at last, pulling away from Dean and taking a seat by Sam, conjuring what he’d need to keep the hunter comfortable. “No, there’s nothing I can do. He- he needs to go through this, needs to detox from the blood.”

“Ok, then,” Dean answered, pulling up a chair beside the bed, and preparing to help his brother in any way they could. 

Hopefully things would be better on the other side. 


	16. Detox

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Pretend that  
> a) It's Saturday and I'm on time  
> b) This is a good chapter  
> c) You like this story  
> Ok? Yeah? Good :)

“Samuel,” Azazel said, the slimy demon being the first thing Sam saw upon waking in… the panic room. Again. He remembered this room, from before Hell. “How are you, m’boy? We’d started worrying about you, thought you might’ve… thought you had worth.” 

Sam flinched, only then realising he was bound. Whoever had done this… they were kind, too kind, wrapping cloth beneath the metal so to provide him some release. “I don’t,” he finally gasped, Azazel close enough to touch,to reach out, to run his fingers down Sam’s cheeks whilst the hunter tried to shy away. No matter how long Sam spent around the demon, he always felt the same revulsion he’d felt as a hunter. The same turn to his stomach, the same closing of his throat, and drive to kill what stood before him. 

“No, you don’t, do you. You’re as good as one of us, aren’t you? We are the ones who were so awful, not even God could forgive us.” Azazel walked away, pacing as he spoke, hands clasped behind his back. “Do you think you deserve forgiveness, Sammy? You’ve done so much, you earnt those black eyes as a human.” He smiled, yellow meeting hazel as their eyes locked, Sam unable to blink or look away. “How many people did you kill? How many monsters? Innocent or not? You remember them all, don’t you, Sammy? All those creatures your precious Lo told you about, and you killed them all, just to spite him.”

Sam didn’t speak. He couldn’t, for he had nothing to say; this was the truth, and he deserved it. He deserved it all. 

“Oh, sorry,” Azazel continued, sneering at Sam. “I forgot. Not ‘Lo’, but  _ Gabriel.  _ You tried to sully an archangel, the purest being ever created. You took what he loved, and slaughtered it in cold blood.” The demon bent over the bed, the two sharing the same breath. “Do you remember Kali? How you used witchcraft to make her tear out her own heart? Do you think Gabriel could love a man who committed such atrocities?” 

“No, no, no,” Sam gasped, again and again, tears leaking from his eyes. 

“Do you deserve to be punished?”   
“Yes, yes please, yes, yes yes.”

“Heya Samalamb,”  _ he  _ said, sitting in the corner. Golden eyes and golden hair, a smirk so wide it consumed the room. Not an ounce of kindness within him. 

“Go away!” Sam cried, pulling at the restraints until his wrists soaked with blood, and yet they never hurt. “Please, please just go. Please, not you. Not you.”   
“I think not, Sammich. You see,” Gabriel continued, pacing ever closer, “I torture those who deserve it, and this is the perfect torture for you.” He stood right there, barely an inch between him and the bed. Sam’s view was just of gold, blinding in its magnificence. “I am never going anywhere. Ever.” He bent down, running his hands up Sam’s chest, cupping his face, pulling him up as high as he could go, then dislocating bones to pull him higher. “You and me, together forever, just as you wanted. Isn’t that right?”   
“No no no no no,” Sam babbled, his mind spinning in circles to try and escape this Hell. He didn’t know, though, if this was real or not, because it it were… if Gabriel spoke the truth… and yet he’d never told Azazel who Lo really was; he couldn’t betray Gabriel again. Never again. He wouldn’t give up the only thing he could do for the archangel. 

Had he, though? Had his selfish destruction exposed him? He truly was a monster. 

“I promise you, Sammy, it’s all real. All of it.” Gabriel laughed a maniacal laugh, nose to nose with Sam. “You and me, stuck here, forever. Your own, personal Hell. Just what you wanted, right?”

Sam couldn’t answer; he was too busy screaming. 

 

Xxx

 

Gabriel, the real Gabriel, made sure to see everything Sam saw, to know exactly what he’d been through, to know exactly how to help him. 

He hadn’t known about Kali, though. He’d known Sam had… gone off the rails, as Dean had so eloquently described it, but never had he known that the boy would  _ willingly  _ hunt those he’d loved. Willingly, because Kali didn’t interact with humans; Sam’d had no reason to hunt her, outside of his own drive. 

“When did you hunt Kali?” Gabriel whispered, the question directed to Dean. 

“We didn’t,” Dean replied, tilting his head. “Sam took off for some time, every now and again. Left in the night, turned up a few days later. Scared the crap outta me, but I couldn’t stop him. I guess he did it then. Why?”   
“She was my ex.” The words felt weird to say aloud.  _ Was.  _ Because she was dead. By Sam’s hand. 

_ He was ill,  _ his mind supplied, fighting back against that voice.  _ He’s ill, mentally, still. He didn’t know what he was doing. _

But another voice spoke too, one who whispered right into his ear.  _ You did this. Everyone you love, always destroyed because of you. Sam, by you. Kali, by what you created. You’re a poison. You should just leave.  _

“Don’t you dare,” Dean growled, coming round the bed to grip Gabriel tight. 

“What?” Gabriel bit back, speaking over the prayers emerging from Sam. 

“I know that look. Sam had it every day; you’re trying to run. Well, news flash for you, Sam needs you. You did this to him, so  _ fix it. _ ”

Gabriel stopped, turned, looked at the boy moaning on the bed, being pulled in all directions by forces he couldn’t control. One touch, and all injuries were healed. 

_ He was sick,  _ Gabriel thought, sitting down.  _ He wasn’t himself. He was… I broke him. And he’s sorry. He’s so sorry, and he’s trying. His soul is still pure, beneath it all, and he doesn’t deserve to be judged for what he didn’t understand. _

__ So Gabriel sat there with Dean, holding Sam’s hand through it all.

He didn’t leave. He cried, screamed, broke down before Sam’s bed, the man’s suffering akin to his own. But never did he leave, nor think of doing it. He stayed by the man he loved, and he would continue to do so until Sam told him otherwise. 

 

Xxx

 

“Where is he?” Lilith asked the assembled demons in Hell. Behind her lay what remained of Azazel, Ruby, Meg. Each had failed her, each deserved to die. 

No demon answered, all of them cowering beneath her power. 

“Find him. Someone find him, and bring him to me!” She couldn’t lose Sam Winchester. Not now. Not when they were so close. 

They’d had their boy king, primed and ready. He’d been a puppet, a dog on a leash. Give him the right motive, and he’d do whatever they wanted. 

Even better, they had the soul of one John Winchester, so close to breaking; with Lucifer’s vessel off the map, Heaven saw no reason to give a free pass to their Righteous man. No, the man who’d neglected and abused his sons had no rights to paradise. The man who’s only true motive was revenge, didn’t belong in Heaven. 

Instead, he’d rotted in the furthest corner of Hell, under the blades of Lilith and Alistair, so close to cracking. 

Except now, they had no boy king. No Sam Winchster. 

Heaven may have given up, but Hell most certainly hadn’t.  _ Lilith  _ hadn’t. 

“Find him! Find him now!” She sent them all hunting. Soon, she would have Sam back, and then she would have her paradise. No matter what. 


	17. The end

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, this is it. The final chapter. The last hurrah. The end.   
> You ready?

Sometimes Sam saw Dean. He saw the hunter he’d been taught to fear, the brother he’d grown to love, the man who’d stood by him his whole life. Sometimes Azazel would return, whispering sweet tortures in his ear, all because Sam had asked. 

But mostly, Sam saw Gabriel. Mostly, Sam screamed. 

Gabriel held his hand through it all, and Dean stayed by his side, whilst Bobby brought them all supplies.

Sam had drunk demon blood solidly for sixty years. It took five weeks to finally be clean. 

 

Xxx

 

One thing Gabriel had insisted on, was that Dean and Bobby slept each night, upstairs, in their own beds. Partially for their own health, but mostly so they couldn’t see how broken he truly was. He spoke to Sam in these moments, hoping to give the boy some sort of comfort, whether in the form of words, or soothing his pains with his grace.

“I thought we could go back to Meteora. Remember that? When we went all around Greece? We can go there for a month, a year even, after all this. Would you like that?” Gabriel spoke for some time, but he broke off the moment Sam took a shuddering breath. “Sam?”

The boy didn’t reply, but when Gabriel looked, his eyes were wide open, tears spilling down his cheeks.

“Sam? Are you… you?” Gabriel cursed his stupidity, yet again. “Sam? Talk to me, please. Please, Sammich.”

Sam curled in on himself, his body wracked with sobs. “Please just- just go. You don’t- I don’t- Please, just go,” Sam begged. 

Gabriel felt his heart shatter yet again. “I’m not going anywhere.”

Sam looked up, half convinced this was all in his head, but praying that it was real. It  _ felt  _ more real than anything else, at least. But Gabriel shouldn’t have come back. 

“It’s real, Sam. I’m real, I’m here. I’m not going anywhere, never again. I love you, Sam.”

“No, no, no. You don’t. You lie, and you don’t know,” Sam cried, lowering his gaze as a fresh wave of sobs overtook him. 

“I know, Sam,” Gabriel whispered, pulling Sam as close as possible, holding him tight. “I know about Hell, and what happened down there. I know that you tried to hunt me across the world, and the monsters that came along as well. I know you wanted to ruin the world I loved, and use what I’d taught you to use for good, for murder.” Gabriel paused, taking a deep breath. “I know you went out of your way to hunt innocents, and that you went after people I know. And- and Kali, too. I know all of it.” 

Sam cried. He cried until there was nothing more to give, until he was empty of everything. And then he cried some more. 

Gabriel held him through it, soaking Sam’s shirt with his own tears, crying for all he’d lost too. 

They stayed there all night, all day, and all night again. Dean stayed away, knowing when he wasn’t welcome, but brought food and drink for the pair to ignore. Sam didn’t once speak, nor did Gabriel. They simply held each other, and mourned all they’d lost. 

Eventually, though, once Sam was in deep slumber, Gabriel found himself out under the night’s sky, watching the stars in their eternal glory. He’d placed some of them in the sky himself, back before the world was but a whisper in his father’s thoughts. When all returns to dust, he’d still be able to sit and watch the stars, and they’d keep him company until he, too, was nothing more than a memory in time. 

“You can see it, can’t you,” Death said by way of a hello, joining Gabriel out in the scrapyard. “You can see his soul?”

“I don’t want to talk about it,” Gabriel replied, his voice unable to hold any more emotion. 

“No, I don’t suppose you do,” Death mused. He didn’t look to the archangel, and the archangel didn’t look at him. Neither wanted to broach the topic that haunted them. “He acted of his own will. You know as well as I how this will end, and I cannot do any more to stop it. I’m sorry, Gabriel.”   
“I’ll see you in a few decades,” Gabriel replied, numb to all, including the stars. 

“Enjoy it, whilst you can.” And Death left. 

Gabriel didn’t want to watch the stars anymore. He didn’t want to see their mocking in their eternal ways. 

 

Xxx

 

Sam didn’t speak for a week. Gabriel held him, spoke to him, whispered tales of his life Sam’d heard a thousand times before. But never, ever, did he leave Sam’s side. 

But eventually, that changed. 

“I’m sorry,” Sam whispered, his voice hoarse after so long without use, not to mention the strain it had been under right before it’s silence. 

“Sam?” Gabriel asked, almost believing he’d imagined the words. 

“I’m sorry. I’m so, so sorry, Lo,” Sam repeated, again and again, unable to stop the litany. 

Eventually, he fell silent. And at last, Gabriel spoke. “I forgive you.” 

“You can’t.”   
“I’m the archangel of justice and mercy, as appointed by God. I’m the demi-god Loki, the one charged with bestowing justice on those deserving. You have repented enough, Sam, and I forgive you.” He cupped Sam’s face, lifting it so Sam had no choice but to look him in the eye. “I forgive you, and I love you. More than anything.” 

“I’ve done terrible things,” Sam whispered. 

“And you’ve repented. Sam, you went to  _ Hell  _ because you knew what you did was wrong. How can you not see that?” 

“Because- I don’t deserve it. I deserve to rot. Leave me to rot, please.” 

_ What have I done?  _ Gabriel thought, neither for the first, nor the last, time. “I’ve done terrible things too, so I guess we’ll just have to rot together.” 

Sam looked up at last, shocked by what Gabriel said. He found only a look of profound sadness staring back at him. But underneath it all, there was love. 

“Do you promise not to leave again?” Sam asked. 

“I promise,” Gabriel said, pulling Sam up for a tender kiss, one he’d been desperate for for far too long. 

 

Xxx

 

Lilith watched Sam move about that old house. She saw how he healed from his tortures, becoming the man he should have become, had that trickster not become involved. Yes, Hell had lost Sam that time, but they would have him soon enough. 

“Think again, bitch,” a low voice growled from behind, and she turned to find the trickster himself standing there in all his raging glory. 

Holding an archangel blade. 

“Let me guess,” Lilith mused. “Gabriel.” 

“How could you tell?” Gabriel sneered, unconcerned with his name being known. 

“Archangel blade. Only four of you, and I know for a fact that two are upstairs, and one below. That leaves few options.” Safe to say, Lilith was slightly concerned. 

“You can’t have him,” Gabriel growled, taking a step forward. 

“We will. You can’t change destiny.” Lilith matched his step with one of her own, only she was trying to escape. “Not even an archangel has that power.”

“We’ll see.” Lilith died before she knew what had hit her. 

 

Xxx

 

It was a month before Sam held eye contact for more than a second, three to be able to hold a full conversation, and six to leave him alone. Eight months on from his detox, and Gabriel took him away to their former world-travelling apartment. 

They weren’t what they used to be, but they were getting there. 

Sam, though, remained human. Gabriel had offered to make him a trickster once again, but Sam said no, and that was that. He never asked again. 

But that meant Sam aged. 

By thirty, Sam was back to his old self. Mentally stable? Not really. Nightmares of Hell? A given. Waking in a cold sweat thanks to memories of what he’d done? Absolutely. But he learnt how to cope, and Gabriel sayed with him the entire time. 

No demon ever crossed their paths again, and Sam had a fleeting suspicion it was thanks to the archangel on his shoulder. 

At thirty two, Sam proposed, and by thirty three they were married. It was a small ceremony, only attended by Dean, Bobby, and Ellen and Jo, whom Dean had forced Sam to meet. Ellen immediately began mothering Sam, and soon enough she was a part of their makeshift family. 

Sam never hunted again. Dean, though, found himself a new partner in Jo. They tired the dating thing, but quickly found that they were more like siblings than anything else. Dean never went off the rails again, but you could sometimes see it in his eyes; a fleeting flash of something darker, waiting for its moment to emerge. 

Thirty eight. Sam received a call from Bobby. Dean was dead. Vamp nest. Jo, too, went down fighting. 

Gabriel held Sam through the night whilst he cried, then through the day, and then the night again. But life continued, and they got back to work. 

_ Work  _ being serving up just desserts. Whilst Sam didn’t perform the tricks, he did have a knack for finding bastards, and designing some pretty epic punishments. He made sure, though, that the punishment always fit the crime. Not a bit more, and not a bit less. Gabriel made sure he stayed on track, too. 

Thirty nine, and his first grey hair appeared. Sam yanked it out before Gabriel could see, and any subsequent ones after that, too. Gabriel knew, though. Of course he did, and he couldn’t help but remember that conversation with Death. 

But they didn’t speak of it. 

Forty one, and Ellen and Bobby got married. Neither Sam nor Gabriel attended the wedding, it being one that many hunters attended. Though Sam was human, word had spread about his time as something else, and his monstrous partner to accompany him. Though Bobby and Ellen had fought the rumours, there were some who couldn’t be dissuaded from believing the pair should be put down. 

Sam didn’t blame them, but Gabriel made sure those people had a stroke or two of bad luck. Nothing major, of course; just a broken bone here, or a trip to the ER there. Nothing compared to what he could do. 

Forty five, and Sam couldn’t hide the greys. Gabriel tried to be kind, a few grey strands appearing of his own, but Sam wouldn’t have it. 

“No, Gabe,” he whispered against his husband’s lip, cupping his chin so to kiss him more easily. One arm slid around his waist, pulling Gabe flush against him. “Please, just let it go.” 

“Sam,” Gabriel said, voice cracking. 

“No. No. Just- just me, ok?” 

Gabe tried to hide the tears, but he couldn’t stop them from forming. “Ok,” he whispered, and his hair returned to normal. 

Bobby died a week later. Age finally got to him. They mourned, once again, and held their own funeral for him. Ellen joined them from time to time, dropping in for a chat every now and again, but she, too, was old, and eventually her soul, too, took its place in Heaven.

Fifty eight, and Sam’s face began to sag, creases forming in his once perfect skin. No longer could they pass as husbands. Instead, Gabriel called himself Sam’s nephew in public, if ever they were asked. No one spoke if they saw the pair sitting slightly too close. 

Sixty two, and Sam was feeling his age; he wasn’t as fast, not as strong, as he once was. Still, though, him and Gabe travelled the world. Still, he served up justice, and still he loved the being besides him. 

Gabriel, though, left each night to search for  _ something _ he could use. Something to keep Sam human, but keep him  _ alive.  _ Eventually, he called on Michael.

“Brother. It’s good to see you,” Michael said, keeping his distance from his brother. 

“Hey Mikey,” Gabriel replied, but he wasn’t quite able to summon his usual gusto. “I need a favour.”   
“I can’t extend Samuel Winchester’s life. No one can, save our father.” Michael had little control over his vessel’s expression, so his words came out completely emotionless. But Gabriel could see the angel within, and he knew his brother was sorry. 

“Save him, then. Please,” Gabriel begged, unashamed of crying before his brother. 

“I have granted you two your peace these past years. Yes,” Michael raised his hand when Gabriel went to interrupt, “I know about Lilith, and I know of your scheming. I appreciate your prevention of Lucifer rising, which is why we allowed the abomination to live.”   
“He’s  _ not  _ and abomination!” Gabriel snarled, his whole body taught with rage at those words. 

“Brother, you know he is.” 

Again, Gabriel could see Michael’s sadness. But at the same time, he didn’t want to hear what he already knew too well. The thought had haunted him these past years, after all. 

“I allowed him a life,” Michael continued. “That is all he can have, though. I’m sorry.” Michael took an unneeded breath. “I hope you will come home, once he is gone. I would love to have you back. We all would.” 

“We’ll see,” was all Gabriel said, and he left. 

From then on, every night, he prayed to an absent father for one last gift. God never replied. 

At seventy three, Sam got cancer. Stomach cancer, of all things. The doctor gave Sam a year, tops. Gabriel knew it was more like seven months. 

He kept praying. He still had no answer. 

Still, Sam grew weaker. Still, he continued to die. Eventually, he couldn’t get out of bed.

And finally, his last hour began. That was when Gabriel gave in. 

“Sammy,” he whispered, taking his husband’s frail hand. He let the tears fall down his face. “Sammy, you- I-” He didn’t know how to say it. 

“I think…” Sam began, trailing off, but soon regaining his nerve to continue. “I think I’ve always known, deep down, that I wouldn’t go to Heaven. It’s ok, though. I- I know I’m returning to Hell, and I’m ok with that.” He tried to offer up a weak smile, but that only sent Gabriel further into his misery. 

“Sam.” Gabriel didn’t know what to say. “Sam, please, just- just don’t leave me. Please. I- I love you, more than anything, and I can’t live without you. Please, just stay. You can- I’ll give you back my powers, but things don’t have to change! We can stay like we are now, and you don’t have to do anything trickster-y. You can just be you, and I’ll be me, and we can live forever, together.” He was openly crying. Sam, too, allowed the tears to fall, soaking his pillow. “You can’t tell me you want to go back. You can’t. They- they’ll make you one of them, again, and I can’t stop it.” He lay down on their king sized bed, curling into Sam’s side. “I can’t go through that again, Sammy. Please, just- just say yes. Just say yes, Sam.” 

Sam swallowed, and the world hung in the balance. 

He didn’t want to die. That wasn’t what this was about. It was just… he couldn’t be a monster, not again. He’d spent his life trying to be good, do good, earn redemption, hoping that maybe, just  _ maybe,  _ God would allow him into Heaven, where Gabriel could come see him. But he’d always known, really, that it was all for nothing. He’d done too much to earn such a thing. 

He’d still had hope, though. 

The time for hope was long gone, he realised at last. There, in his final hours, he had only what was before him; he had an archangel who loved him, more than anything, and who he would go to the ends of the earth for. He’d lived a life wherein he’d done everything he could ever have dreamed of, and other things he never would have thought possible. He’d seen every corner of the world, and throughout it all, Gabriel’s hand had never left his. 

He’d go through that initial horror story, if it would bring him to Gabriel again. He’d do anything for the archangel, if it would make Gabe smile. 

Anything. 

“You know,” Sam croaked, Gabriel lifting his head to better hear, “the universe is a very big place. I’d quite like to see it, I think.” 

Gabriel’s heart caught in his throat, and then stopped. 

“What will it be, Samuel?” A new voice asked. Death stood at the end of his bed, simply watching them. “I can’t wait for long.” 

Gabriel looked to Sam, then to Death, then back to Sam. For the first time in years, he had hope in his eyes. A desperate hope Sam never wanted to see on his face again; it was the hope of a broken man. Well, Sam would just have to stay to fix that. 

Sam pressed his lips to Gabriel’s, smiling as he pulled away, and whispered, “Yes.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I was honestly planning on killing Sam, and then I changed my mind. I decided you guys have been through enough.   
> Hope you guys enjoyed this rollercoaster. See ya next time!


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